Homo sapiens are one of the greatest migratory species that ever roamed this planet. This species of wise animals, which evolved in Africa, did not choose to stay there forever. Instead of it, Homo sapiens left their ancestral home and spread all across the planet earth from there, and ultimately became the most abundant and widespread animal species that this world had ever seen.
When people were not familiarize much with the intricacies of democracy and nationalism, they were free to roam all around the world without the requirement of passports and visas which became usually necessary travel documents only since World War-I.
With the rise of the nation states and beginning of world wars, the problem of immigrants and refugees begun to surmount, that has become a big problem in the contemporary world. When nations demarcated their boundaries and imposed restriction on uninhibited roaming of foreigners in their land, it divided the people and somewhat halted the natural development of assimilation of the diverse human races, ethnicity and cultures.
Adverse conditions like over population, backwardness, lack of development, poverty, exploitation, persecution, incessant wars, terrorism, political instability and environmental conditions etc., which have devastated many part of the world, are enforcing the people from these areas to take shelter in some less populated but highly developed and comparatively peaceful countries, in a hope to lead a happy and prosperous life there. But this should not be forgotten that these developed countries are also being beleaguered by their own problems.
Though the immigrants contribute significantly to the economy of the country where they settle and providing a large workforce to the nations where population is aging at an alarming rate, the apprehension of the citizens of these countries towards the immigrants cannot simply be termed paranoia. It is apparent that the immigrants can change the social, economic, political and cultural equilibrium in these countries.
Immigrants (legal as well as illegal) and refugees snatch employment opportunities from the original citizens (though, original is rather an ambiguous word here) of these countries. They also create the problem of law and order because they easily tempt towards criminal activities as usually they don’t have much options to choose from. Their economic conditions and poor circumstances even enforce them to indulge in criminal and other such unlawful activities which ultimately turn the conditions worse for them. Overflow of immigrants and refugees can also alter the cultural and religious harmony and also disrupt the demographic balance of the shelter providing countries as this overflow can render the original dwellers a minority in their own countries.
Increasing population of immigrants can also grab political power in a nation, when they are granted citizenship, because their population can outnumber the original citizens. That’s why in these days the people are becoming more and more averse to the immigrants. They don’t welcome them. They fear that immigrants would snatch everything from them including their existence.
It is apparent that this concern is not baseless at all. Thus, the crisis of immigrants and refugees is not a thing that can be resolved without striking at the root of the problem. Overpopulation (the paramount reason), increasing fundamentalism, political uncertainty, war, terrorism, shrinking land and resources, lack of employment etc. are the main cause of this problem.
