Fifth Grade
Worksheets
What Is Immigration?
What do birds do when the weather begins to turn cold? They fly to another country where the weather is warmer. This move from one place to another is called migration. The birds migrate to a better climate.
People also move from one country to another. If the people go to a new country for just a short visit, they are usually called tourists. If people move to another country with the intention of living there, it is called immigration. The people are called immigrants.
Many immigrants plan to live in the new country for a long period of time. They want to become citizens of the new country. The number of people who immigrate to a new country is very large. In 2009, over 200 million people changed countries. That sounds like a lot of people. Actually, that is only three of every one hundred citizens of the world or 3%. The rest of the citizens of the world stayed in their own countries.
Man has migrated to different parts of the world since the beginning of history. How else do you think land all over the world was settled? Humans migrated across a land bridge between the lands of northern Asia to the land of North America. They migrated from the far north to the far south and populated areas as they moved.
