

The phenomenon of migration has always existed, even chronicled in biblical stories. War and natural catastrophes have created exoduses whilst better opportunities have motivated a more individual migration. That said immigration is now considerably more widespread, thanks to a better worldwide transportation system, and a bigger pressure on resources by increased populations, and it is forecasted to increase massively.



The phenomenon of migration has always existed, even chronicled in biblical stories. War and natural catastrophes have created exoduses whilst better opportunities have motivated a more individual migration. That said immigration is now considerably more widespread, thanks to a better worldwide transportation system, and a bigger pressure on resources by increased populations, and it is forecasted to increase massively.





There are major intercontinental immigration flux, and they are easier to survey than intracontinental flux, so they are well known. First there is a foyer in South and Central America, with the immigration going towards the US, and it is a self feeding flux, as countries are destabilized by this, and their citizens then have to resort to immigrate in turn. It has been talked about in this article "https://thenewrealityinforeignpolicy.blogspot.fr/2017/09/how-us-unknowingly-destabilizes-mexico.html". The drug habit of the US, combined with its economic power, is irresistible for many countries, who became rife with crime brought by the illegal drug trade, and the attraction of the US standard of living, a very high one, convinces populations at risk, with little opportunities where they are, to emigrate.

Another flux is from Africa to Europe and the Gulf. This one is different from the precedent by its non linearity. The flux above was made of a continuous foyer following the route that made the connection from very poor and drug rich countries in South America to the US, contagion making even Mexico a place where people emigrate from, after knocking every small country in Central America. In Africa, by contrast, reasons to emigrate are more diverse, and foyers are not contiguous. Africa is kept poor (see the article https://thenewrealityinforeignpolicy.blogspot.fr/2017/12/unfair-trade-practices-new-crimes-that.html), but, more important here, it is unstable and conflict prone. This is a direct legacy of both colonisation and post colonisation poor country construction, and a great diversity and intrication of ethnies, that make ethnical conflicts more likely, like Europe until recently. Most immigration in Africa is internal, as there are many stable countries with ethnies shared with divided neighbours where people emigrate from. This is the advantage of having a diverse population spread across borders, there will be fraternity and solidarity from close countries. That said some regions, with shared make ups of population, are too overwhelmed by problems for this to work, and in others there is just too much people already living on edge without security of their basic needs met, people cannot stay and need to find a way to sustain their family. In the first, migration is not economical but to find a refuge from a region where shelter is not possible. Such a situation is clear in the Horn of Africa, where famine, along with various insurgencies and authoritarianism makes life very difficult, and safe zones are far away (see article https://thenewrealityinforeignpolicy.blogspot.fr/2017/09/eritrea-paradise-lost.html). There is a need for this region to find asylum, whether for Sudanese, Ethiopians or Somalis, and every nearby country is either more or less affected (Libya, Kenya) or is already taking refugees and cannot support much more (Chad). This leave few options, especially with the presence of criminals who ransom migrants towards Egypt and a general lack of stability south of the Horn of Africa. Europe, with its asylum possibilities is seen as the best and safest option, even if the route itself is notoriously dangerous.

On the other hand, the migration of the group having the motivation outlined in second (poverty and lack of local opportunities to feed the family) is more for economic reason, as their very existence is not threatened, only made bare survival because of poverty. The desire to live in decent conditions adds to a potentially high remittance back to their country. Europe, is often a second choice. Africans (mostly from subsaharan Africa) will emigrate to other regions within Africa first, and, when opportunities are too sparse there, or if instability is too high (like in Libya after the Arab Spring), they will then emigrate to a new region, in this case from Maghreb to Europe. Obviously, there are cases where Europe is a first choice. When speaking the right language, and with family ties, it can be easier to emigrate to former colonization powers, especially as they are the ones that offer the best opportunities. It is especially true for the Maghreb who is close to Europe, and has no other adjacent region with better opportunities.

Migration from Africa is diverse. It is both a refugee flux, mostly from the foyer of Eastern Africa, and an economical migrant flux, from a wide number of countries, as African countries suffer from poor economies, despite high growth rates, and Europe is a vast improvement, though it is often not chosen first as it is quite far away and hard to access.









There is a double flux in Asia, one from countries devastated by war, another by very populous countries with limited opportunities and little safety nets.

The Middle East is known for instability, and has become famous for the migration flow towards Europe. The Iraqi-Syrian war and the Kurdish oppression are the two principal reasons for the current flow of migrants from Asia, and the Yemeni conflict has the potential to add millions others if a route is created. That said there are other foyers of conflicts, or foyers of insecurity, that participate into this

asylum seekers flow. they are indeed small, but have explosive potential. Currently the Afghanistan situation is the prime reason for this flow outside the Middle East, but Chechnia has also contributed, and certain situations are either on the verge of this, or are to far for it to currently matter, but it could change in the future. This include the Kashmir troubles, that participate to the immigration from India and Pakistan, the various areas where armed rebellions or terrorists are operating, the Rohingya crackdown and exodus, the Bangladeshi disparition of lands under water etc.

There is economic migration from Asia, not only towards Europe, but also, of more importance in terms of scale, and in terms of economic impact for the emigrated from nations, towards the Gulf peninsula. The Gulf is very rich, and has huge needs of workers, whether little or highly skilled. India, Pakistan, and several other nearby countries provide the bulk of migrants and the reasons for immigrating are like for economic migrants in Africa. They need it to sustain their family, and either to access to a higher status, harder in poor countries where opportunities are limited or to, quite opposite to the first possibility, access to a bigger pay, and sometimes better life comforts, in an often lower position.

That said not everything is rosy in the Arabian Peninsula. Migrants are often made prisoner of their migrant conditions, because either the contract would be to expensive to break, they already contracted debts towards employment agencies and need to pay them back (often too high for it to be done in their home country), or they had their passports confiscated and so can't leave. They were the first impacted by the economic crisis, as many companies neglected to pay them, and are often in condition described as modern slavery.

There is a wide variety of migration towards the Gulf however, and skilled workers often do not suffer from horrible the conditions discussed above, being well off as there is few locally formed people to compete. The locals are mostly earning money from either owning a shop, working in the government or working in the oil industry. Although it is starting to change with policies like Saudization and Omanization, it still leaves huge gaps in many areas, like healthcare, or information technologies. The migrants having expertise in those domains are much needed and are well taken care off, but it's not the majority. There are two other layers in the migrant classes, first, less skilled migrants than the ones we described above, often with general undergraduate or secondary education, who have jobs in the retail industry, who are relatively easy to replace, but are still needed to make the economy function. Their living and working conditions are not optimal but well paid and their contracts are more or less respected. The last layer, of unskilled and general purpose workers, end up manning all the menial and manual positions. The people there are the most vulnerable to replacement and are often taken advantage of, with little regard for past agreements. They are the ones who die in the construction industry and are too much considered as disposable and quasi-slaves. The gulf is therefore a hard place for some migrants, exploiting them, but it is also a formidable opportunity for others. This apparent contradiction of different tiers of migrants having opposite treatments is actually often the rule, but the Gulf is particularly ruthless towards the lowest tier.

All in all, Asia has two migration flux, one from regions in conflicts (Middle East) towards Europe, who is much like the one from the Horn of Africa to Europe, with people fleeing to save their lives and find reliable shelter, and another, massive, from Asian poor and well populated countries to apparent haven of opportunities (the Gulf, Australia and Europe), which is economic but has also shown to often turn out good only if you have the right skills. Otherwise you might end up over-exploited forever far away from you home country.





Intra-continental migration is harder to quantify, but there are unmistakable trends and countries that represent this immigration. Most of the migration is intra-continental, especially as it is easier to a neighboring country and more values are shared to the new home compared to a far away country. Europe is emblematic for facilitating to a maximum this type of motivation, with a freedom of circulation between member countries and a right to emigrate freely from one to another. This illustrates economic immigration but also, with much smaller numbers, cultural and educational migration, where the migrant motivation is mostly to either study in the new country, or to discover something different thanks to it. The cultural motivation is often done intra-continentally with nations with different, but close, cultures. Given the logistics of the choice of migrating, it is rare that it is done without either a need for it or a strong motivation, so the economic and refuge motivation are dominant, and cultural migration is very individualistic, so it happens more as a percentage of the population, and is evenly spread. On the other hand economic, and, especially, asylum seeking migrants are from concentrated foyers and go in widely used routes. For the last ones, the refugees, intra-continental immigration is often all they have, as transports are unreliable and slow out of their region, as well as expensive, and the route to another continent is very long, dangerous, costly and uncertain. It can be shown in the Rohingya crisis, where they flee to neighbouring countries, in most conflicts in Africa where the majority of refugees are held by neighbours and with the Syrian civil war, where most asylum seekers went in Lebanon and Turkey. The inter-continental migration is often discriminating against the poorest and weakest populations, as well as the most well established, as the first won't be able to make the journey and the others will stay where their business and power resides. Intra-continental migration on the other hand, especially of a population rather than of individuals, will be more diverse and be more representative, it also means that only a fraction of the people having to migrate will do so inter-continentally. The rest will stay near, and with such a number, and randomness, that it is not possible to establish in detail where the migration goes, though it is known that it generally goes from unstable and economically poor countries, to stable and rich ones, but it depends on the immigration policy of each country and how easy it is to move there (transport links) as well as settle (Diaspora, integration). It is going to be even more complex when climate change transforms former stable areas into conflict prone terrain.



