Can we at HN at-least refer to the author as immigrant as opposed to expats? what's an expat anyways ? why does the western world to get to make these tiers where they are expats but arabs, asians, africans etc are all immigrants ?
An expat hopes, even plans to move back to where they came from. They're in their host nation for work reasons only because, at least according to the expat, where they're from is a "better" place than their host country.
What you call yourself, "immigrant" or "expat" is up to you. For example, plenty of Indians call themselves expats in the US. Other Indians call themselves immigrants.
Personally, I'm a fan of the word "alien". God Bless America! :D
An immigrant has an intent to settle, an expat doesn't. In America, one could theoretically lose work authorization should he refer or present himself as an immigrant (if he or she is on a legal status that doesn't allow for immigrant intent).
Same thing in Europe. Thousands of EU citizens live and work anywhere in the EU outside their home country but have no intent on permanently staying there. Often for decades. They are very much expats.
Joining the military can lead to citizenship if they're young enough. Marrying a citizen can also lead to citizenship. Even without becoming a citizen, their children, if they're born here, will become citizens.
If they refer to themselves as an expat, why are you questioning this? Do you demand proof when someone refers to themselves as male or female too?
I know people living in the US who have been there for 20 years and call themselves expats too. They have no intention of retiring in the US: they plan to move back to their home country at that point in their lives.
>Meanwhile a million+ people coming to the USA on temporary work visas fully intending to go back to their home country (or illegally with no path to citizenship) are obviously immigrants.
Is that what they call themselves? I would normally call them expats, unless they say otherwise.
>At some point people have to come to terms that this isn't about some technical definition of "immigrant" vs "expat" but a deeper prejudice.
At some point, people like you need to stop trying to make everything about racism.
> At some point, people like you need to stop trying to make everything about racism.
But it is. (Kinda.) If you don't look East-Asian in China, the predominant assumption is that you're an "expat". And statistically this is almost always true -- Chinese nationality is extremely hard to obtain if you're not born with it, and probably 99% of Chinese nationals look East Asian and has East Asian ethnicity.
Expats have a great deal more agency about their lives: where they live, where they work, when to return, etc.
To be clear, I don't particularly like this distinction, but it absolutely is a thing in the Middle East down to separate immigration lines at airports, and if anything glossing it over by calling the Bangladeshi construction worker living in a container in the brutal heat and sharing a latrine with 50 other guys an "expat" does nobody any favors. Or was the American South powered by African "expat" labor too?
A spanish banker reassogned to London is somehow an immigrant .
Resident alien is a general term (not specific to the US) for someone who permanently resides in a country without citizenship; it is also an IRS tax term for someone who is either a permanent resident alien or who meets the “substantial presence test” so that they are treated as residents for tax purposes.
A permanent resident alien is another term for someone with a green card, which is for people who intend to (often, already have) immigrated before they qualify for naturalization.
A white immigrant.
My point wasn’t about skin color though.