The USA is a perfect example of that. In the old days the Black folks left the South and immigrated to the North where they where wanted and could lead much better lives. Then after that The US population immigrated to the West, again where people where wanted and where they could lead much better lives!

Source

Developing nations also face illegal immigration

by Chris Hawley - Dec. 11, 2010 12:00 AM

The Arizona Republic

MEXICO CITY - Illegal immigration is not a problem just for wealthy countries.

Some of the world's heaviest migration is between developing nations: Bangladesh to India, Afghanistan to Iran, Pakistan to India and Burkina Faso to Ivory Coast, among others.

Population experts call this "south-south migration": the movement of migrants between so-called "southern" or developing countries instead of wealthier or "northern" countries. It's a growing phenomenon as better roads and technology make it easier to travel to a country that's slightly better off, allowing a person to send money back home.

"There's a lot of migration within these relatively poor regions," said Jeffrey Williamson, an economist at Harvard University. "As soon as a few leader (countries) crank up their growth rates, they start pulling the migrants in."

But the flow has also caused new problems, stirring up fears that migrants are stealing jobs, and fueling attacks on immigrants in countries like South Africa and Thailand.

Labor and civil-rights laws are often weaker in poor countries, exposing migrants to abuse. And migrants in developing countries are more likely to be fleeing wars, leading to a whole raft of social and diplomatic problems.

Some countries are taking extreme measures to stop the flow, both officially and unofficially.

India is building a 2,500-mile wall along its border with Bangladesh. In Egypt, U.N. Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay accused some border guards of adopting an unofficial "shoot to kill" policy that has left at least 60 Ethiopian, Sudanese and Eritrean migrants dead since 2007.

About 86 million of the world's 214 million migrants are in developing countries, according to the United Nations. That's up 32 percent since 1995, when there were 65 million migrants in developing countries.

"The economic dynamic of today's world, with this idea of globalization, has marketed this idea that you have to move around," said Fernando Neira, an immigration expert at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. "It's become an important part of many cultures." Strangers abroad

The number of migrants in poor countries took a huge jump in 1991 with the breakup of the Soviet Union.

Suddenly, millions of Soviet citizens became foreigners stranded in newly independent countries, from ethnic Russians in Ukraine to ethnic Tajiks living in Uzbekistan.

Russia now ranks second after the United States in immigrants, with about 12.3 million foreigners living there.

In Africa, war and famine have driven people from the north-central part of the continent to politically stable countries on the coast, such as Senegal and Ghana.

In Saharan countries, newly paved roads have made it easier for migrants to travel to other countries, especially Libya.

In Botswana and parts of South Africa, AIDS has killed off tens of thousands of people and created labor shortages that are filled by migrants.

Migration is now seen as a rite of passage in some African tribes, according to a 2009 U.N. study.

For the Soninke in Western Africa, the local term for "to migrate" is "aller en aventure" - French for "go on an adventure." Soninke men who stay home are called tenes, a derogatory term in the local language that means "stuck like glue," or "unable to move," the study said.

In Asia, India ranks first in migrants, with 5.4 million.

Despite its crushing poverty, India draws illegal immigrants, who provide cheap labor. They come from even poorer neighboring countries, most of them Muslims fleeing economic and political turmoil in Bangladesh. Border security has been a major issue since November 2008, when terrorists from Pakistan killed at least 163 people in Mumbai.

India's border-security forces routinely gun down cattle smugglers and other civilians crossing the border with Bangladesh despite scant evidence of any crime, the New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a report released this week.

In other parts of Asia, mail-order brides are boosting the number of immigrants, the United Nations says. China's one-child policy has created a shortage of women in rural towns, prompting Chinese farmers to seek wives in Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam.

Farmers in South Korea, India and Taiwan are also bringing wives from abroad. About 32 percent of all brides in Taiwan now come from mainland China, a U.N. study said.

In Latin America, Argentina, Brazil and Mexico absorb the most migrants. The Dominican Republic has about 434,000 migrants from neighboring Haiti, the Western Hemisphere's poorest country. The second-poorest country in the Americas is Nicaragua. Thousands of Nicaraguans cross the border into wealthier Costa Rica every year. New challenges

Immigration causes special problems for poorer countries.

Maintaining a bureaucracy to track and issue visas is expensive, so many countries simply don't have one.

A U.N. survey of African countries in 2005 found that more than half had no policy for processing long-term immigrants.

"They don't have the resources to document and control and police," said Williamson, the Harvard economist.

That means most immigrants enter without authorization. Because most poor countries have trouble patrolling their borders, there is no one to stop them. As the number of unauthorized migrants grows, so does resentment toward them, said Tim Gindling, an economist who studies migration at the University of Maryland.

"It's a similar thing to what happens in the United States: People begin to think these people are becoming a drag on public services like education or health care, or that they're bringing more crime," Gindling said. Usually such fears are unfounded, he said.

War refugees make up about 15 percent of migrants in developing countries, as opposed to less than 2 percent in wealthier countries, according to U.N. figures. That creates more of a social and economic burden for the host countries because refugees usually bring their families and arrive en masse.

In Syria and Jordan, residents have complained that Iraqi refugees are driving up rents because there is more competition for scarce housing.

In South Africa, tensions between local residents and refugees from Zimbabwe exploded in violence in May 2008. Gangs of South Africans rampaged through immigrant neighborhoods, killing 62 people. There have been smaller outbreaks of violence since then.

In countries that are stepping-stones to the United States or Europe, illegal immigration has also strengthened organized-crime gangs.

Central American gangs called Maras control river crossings along the Guatemalan-Mexican border and railway routes through Mexico. They rob and rape Central American migrants and charge them "fares" for riding on freight trains bound for the U.S. border.

In northern Mexico, drug cartels sometimes force Central American migrants to carry drugs across the U.S.-Mexican border.

During a six-month study period from September 2008 to February 2009, at least 9,758 migrants were kidnapped and held for ransom in Mexico, a report by Mexico's National Human Rights Commission said. At least 91 were kidnapped with the direct participation of Mexican police, it said. Some good benefits

Not all the effects of south-south migration are bad.

As in developed countries, the cheaper labor provided by migrants can help industries stay competitive in the face of foreign competition.

Hiring Burmese (Myanmar) migrants has helped Thai clothing factories compete with China, and affordable Burmese maids have allowed Thai women to enter the workforce, said Kathleen Newland, a director of the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute.

Money sent home by migrants helps bring some stability to families in the world's poorest countries, she said.

"Migration almost always brings some benefit to the individual (migrant), except for those who are trafficked or just really, really unlucky," Newland said.

In recent years, the United Nations and other international bodies have tried to set standards for the treatment of migrants. Most of those efforts have hit dead ends, Williamson said.

"The lesson is that we (developing countries) should be careful when looking within ourselves," said Agustin Escobar, an immigration expert at the Center for Research and Advanced Studies in Social Anthropology in Guadalajara, Mexico.

"We need to follow the same principles of respect and legality that we demand for our own emigrants in the developed countries."

Republic reporter Sergio Solache contributed to this article.