Migrants

Immigrant - “A person who comes to live permanently in a foreign country”.  That sort of sums it up when natives of a country consider anybody that was not born in their native country.  How can they become truly part of us?  And when the chips are down, these immigrants are easily pointed out as being part of whatever problem the natives may be facing.   I believe that the migrants may hold the keys to more solutions than what they are credited for and I shall return to this later.
When a person emigrates, the loss of sense of place is immediate.  The natives in the country of origin see the emigrant as a “loss” for the country or in many cases as “good riddance”, one less person to worry about, or in the worst case, the emigrant is seen as a traitor to the values and culture of his country of birth.
All immigrants and emigrants are transients or wanderers in the eyes of those that have never ventured to settle outside their known world.  As migrants our accents give us away, the simple things we get wrong in conversations, the subtleties of the culture you are trying to adopt, all these things set you apart.  In many cases being an immigrant puts you at a disadvantage in the work place.  Can this person be trusted, will this immigrant be able to cope with our way of doing things, and should he/she not rather start at the bottom and remain there?
Many immigrants to the developed countries go through stringent selection processes.  You must be of the right age group, you must have a skill that is in short supply, you cannot have a criminal record, you must bring enough currency to fend for yourself for a while, you and every family member that comes with you must be in excellent health, you must conform to very interesting rules and regulations, and once you arrive, none of this is effectively recognized by the people you meet every day at the supermarket, in the job interview, on the bus and in the classroom.
Still, governments have expensive immigration programs.  They see it as a way to bolster the economy, to grow the number of productive citizens, to cover for the skills that leave their country for various reasons, to bring investment into the country and to get a certain diversity that they see may be advantageous in future.  These are all valid reasons.  But do the general population accept these facts?
The world is rapidly changing and the developing countries have aging populations.  For this reason getting skilled young people from other countries into the economic activity makes sense.  As long as the immigrants can integrate with he culture of the new country, this is a good way to renew economies.  The key is integration.  This can only be achieved if there is acceptance that the immigrants are carefully selected for their future contribution and if the community invites them in and values their contributions.
Many older people have a sense of adventure and massive experience that they can bring together to the benefit of a country.  The fact that they are older and wiser must be seen as a positive for those countries looking for exceptional skill sets.  Here you can choose people with proven track records in the country of origin, you can inspect their value systems by interrogating friends and family and co-workers.  The fact that they have the energy and the will to bring incredible change to bear on their settled existences must be an indication of the potential of these people to be active participants and agents for change in their new countries.  For this to happen the communities in the new country must acknowledge this potential and integrate these people rapidly at the levels of planning and strategy to harvest the wealth of experience.  In many cases these people bring established and strong families with them that can be centers of renewed growth in family values in developed countries where this has deteriorated.
As I said earlier, I believe proper immigration policies and programs are key to the constant renewal of cultures and countries.  Immigrants are not the slaves of the new era, they are often the cream of the crop.  They may be the ingredients needed to refresh a stale economy, or to bring the insight for renewal of a stagnant city, or they may bring with them the warnings of paths taken somewhere else that ultimately led to disaster.  It is up to the communities in which the immigrants imbed themselves to utilize this resource.  It also asks of the immigrants to unconditionally adopt their new environment, and to do the rootstock onto which they are grafted proud by bringing forth magnificent fruit.