Immigration Experiences and the Responses to Immigrants

Immigration Experiences and the Responses to Immigrants Student’s Name Institutional Affiliation Introduction Immigration involves the relocation of people to other places due to different reasons such as education, job, adventure, visit, or any other reason. Immigration is associated with different experiences which may interrupt the normal life structure of a relocating person or family. The most affected individuals who migrate either due to job relocation or for educational purposes as they are forced to change their lifestyle, culture, or practices (Tyrrell, 2015). Some immigration experiences may be horrific depending on how they are treated in the host country or region. Cultural and ethnic differences are considered among the major challenge experienced by most of the immigrants across the world. The immigrants are known to have diverse experiences as they move to new places with a lot of challenges which are expected to solve mainly as stated by the immigration opponents as discussed herein. The rate of global immigrants is impressive with roughly 10 per cent of the total world population (150 million) migrating from their countries for various reasons (Tyrrell, 2015). Globalization and the green revolution are considered among the factors that are contributing to the increased rate of immigration. The green revolution is reducing the labor force required in the rural areas thus forcing many people to immigrate to the cities and urban areas. Urban areas have high opportunities for employment in the manufacturing, commercial, government and the service industries thus attracting a high population. Cities also have a record in improved infrastructure, housing, and health care as well as other essential services which are not available in rural areas. For these reasons among others, the rate of rural-urban immigration has increased with the population in cities and urban areas rising every year. Over the years, different factors have influenced the rate of immigration, especially to urban areas. The experienced variation of the general trend of urbanization is mainly experienced due to the factors that hinder the immigration rate across the world. For example, the economic depression period greatly depressed urban developed which discouraged a lot of people from urban migration (Tyrrell, 2015). During this period, industrialized countries experienced a decreased rate of economic growth. The immunity of growth of most of the cities in Western Europe, the Soviet Union, and East Asia was damaged by the impacts of World War II. However, other areas like Latin America which escaped civil conflict experienced rapid economic growth and urbanization. Due to the varying economic, political, and social factors, different governments have established different structures to control and regulate immigration rates. For example, the United State has restricted immigration, which has limited people from certain countries like Mexico from entering the country. Most of the countries have enhanced technological growth in rural areas to minimize the increasing rate of rural-urban migration. The Chinese government loosened resident restrictions which have kept most of the population in the countryside, allowing more people to migrate into urban areas. This means that by 2015, over 56 per cent of the Chinese population was living in the cities, recording a drastic revolution from the previous 26 per cent of urban population back in 1950. Most of the cities are characterized by an increased population of young people while rural areas are dominated by the aged population. There are many challenges associated with the massive immigration of people, especially in urban areas. For instance, immigration has resulted in population imbalance which stresses the government in sharing of national resources. For this reason, a country may experience imbalanced economic growth as a result of increased immigration rate. This situation affects the immigrants greatly in that most of them experience economic challenges with more challenges experienced in urban areas. People in cities and urban areas strive to survive with fewer salaries and high cost of living. Services in urban areas are available but expensi...