Joe Walsh

Migration is a change in residence that can be temporary, permanent, daily, or annually. There are 3 types of Migration: Cyclic Movement-Migration that is repeated annually or daily Examples) vacation, commuting, going to school etc Periodic Movement- temporary relocation that lasts longer than cyclic but brings a migrant back home. Ex) Migrant Labor, Military Service, college, etc Migration- When movement results in permanent relocation International- Migration involving the crossing of international border (ex: moving from Mexico to USA) Internal Migration- Migration that takes place within a country (ex: moving from Maryland to Idaho)

Migration can either be the result of a conscious decision to move or the forced migration resulting from the imposition of authority or power Their have been many forced migrations in history: 1. The Atlantic Slave trade is one of largest and most devasting forced migrations in history. It involved the forced migration of hundreds of thousands of Africans to the America’s 2. Another historic example is was the shipping of thousands of British convicts to Australia 3. Finally, the forced movement of Indians by the US government into reservations in the West.

Voluntary Migragtion occurs after a migrant weighs options and choices in a decision to move. Ernest Ravenstein created the 5 laws of migration 1. Every migration flow generates a return or counter migration 2. The majority of migrants move a short distance 3. Migrants who move long distances tend to choose big cities 4. Urban Residents are less migratory than rural residents 5. Families are less likely to make international moves than young adults. Every Migration involves push factors( conditions and perceptions that push the migrant away) and pull factors( conditions that attract a migrant)

Many Migration streams appear on maps as long unbroken routes consisting of a series of stages, this is called step migration. Intervening opportunities is the pull factors that influence all migrants on their way to the final destination. For example after WWI many Blacks from the South began moving to northeast cities like Detroit and NYC, but on the way got pulled in to cities like St. Louis because of the opportunities their

European explorers and colonization played a key role in the global migration patterns we see today. Explorers, inculding surveyors and cartographers, played a major role in finally mapping the world and helping the process of migration and colonization European Colonization has encouraged much of the recent migration. Colonization allowed for the one of the greatest human migrations in history and that was the flow from Europe to the Americas Colonization also led to the migration flow into New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa

When migrants go to a neighboring country for the short term economic gain this is called regional migration. Regional Migration and European colonization lead to the establishment of “islands of development” These islands of development are usually coastal cities were most foreign investments come These islands often have the most paying jobs and infrastructure as well

National migration flows are essentially internal migrations. One Example of this was the massive migration from the Russian heartland to the shores of the Pacific. This migration flow moved East to West Or the more recent flows from North East US to the Sun Belt After WWII thousands of labor migrants moved from North Africa, Turkey, Caribbean region, and India to work in western Europe as guest workers. The idea was that these guest workers would return home after finishing their jobs but instead many of the workers stayed-both because they wanted to and were needed.

Refugee, as defined by the UNHCR, is a “person who has a well founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationaltility, or political opinion. The number of refugees has increased form 2.9million in 1970 to at least 24million now(not counting the 25million internal refuges) Internal Refugees are people that have been displaced within their own countries, these people do not cross international borders and often go uncounted( Example: victims of Hurricane Katrina) On the other hand international refugges are displaced persons who have crossed a international border and encamped themsevles in a country that is not their own

Currently Africa south of the Sahara has the largest number of refugees in the world as well as the greatest potential for refuge flow, closely followed by Southwest Asia/North Africa and South Asia coming in third Sub-Saharan Africa: here there are about 8 million official refuges, but there are millions more internal refuges that go unaccounted. The most recent refuge crisis occurred in Rwanda where hundreds of thousands of refugees fled Rwanda for Zaire, Congo, and Tanzania.

Goverments have an influential part in restricting or allowing for migration and in how to deal with the increased refuge flow Many countries,like the US, have placed many obstacles for migrants Dating back to 1882 when congress approved its first immigration laws to prevent the immigration of Chinese into California Another example was in 1901 the Australian government approved the Immigration Restriction act that ended all immigration from Japan, China, and the rest of South Asia