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Expats = moving there temporarily, either on assignment or retirement.

Immigrants = moving there to settle down permanently, eventually naturalizing.

You can start off being an expat and turn into an immigrant.

Semantic drift is a thing.

Expat hasn't really been used with that meaning lately. Same as third/first world countries, gay or terrific.

No this is white people

"white" people can't immigrate? Are they immobile ? What's preventing them from immigrating?

They were being facetious, it's a critique of the racist/classist tendency in our language to label people with brown skin living in another country as "immigrants" but white people as "ex-pats". It's related to the history of WASP colonialism.

I think they tread the line in reverse here: I don't think LA Times would put out news that call for immigrants to "go home" but it's fair game when they call them expats.

They don't like being called immigrants since they use it in a mostly negative context, so they are expats :)

Found the racial grifter

Migrant workers?

They're here to pick your SEO strategies.

Expats usually refer to skilled or wealthy immigrants.

It's a subclass.

Most skilled immigrants are still immigrants, unless we start calling h1bs expats