The Afghanistan Question : The Effect of International immigration on the host countries.

International immigration involves the movement of persons across international borders; either voluntarily or involuntarily.

Uganda is famously known for having friendly immigration policies that give refugees plenty of rights including education, work and property ownership.

It hosts more refugees than any other African country and has recently granted a request by the United State of America to temporarily host 2000 Afghan refugees following their home country’s rapid takeover by the Taliban and the withdrawal of US troops from the country occasioning a state of total instability.

The evacuation of the 2000 Afghan refugees has caused a social uproar amongst Ugandan citizens who anxiously await the landing of the refugees . The question of the day however remains;

Is Uganda not biting more than she can chew? Is the admission of these refugees a step in the right direction or a recipe for disaster?

Migration in Afghanistan has a long history and has not only significantly affected the countries social and cultural landscape but has also interfered with the same aspects in the host countries of Afghan refugees.

Why the immigration?

The main reason the Afghans migrate to other countries is because Afghanistan has had countless civil wars and conflicts that have been rocking on since 1978. Her citizens began to migrate to other countries since 1978 when the Soviet Union invaded the country but the most devastating time on Afghanistan was in 1992 when The Mujahedin(members of a number of guerrilla groups operating in Afghanistan during the Afghan War (1979–92) that opposed the invading Soviet forces and eventually toppled the Afghan communist government.) came to power and killed thousands of people within the country’s borders. This made many people to leave Afghanistan and either fleeing to the neighboring countries like Pakistan, Iran and Russia or to the west if they had money.

Then the US invaded Afghanistan on October 7 2001 responding to the call against global terrorism after the 9/11 bombings in her country. This was when the Taliban refused to hand over Al-Qaedas leader, Osama bin Laden, who was hiding in Afghanistan after being initially invited back to the country by the former Mujahideen commander Abdul Arab Rassool Sayyaf.

The country experienced temporary peace in the times of its occupation by the US troops but this had come to an end and marked the beginning of emigration and strife once again. Migration has thus been an integral part of the historical identity of the country.

What's the status today?

Today, international immigration has become a fundamental part of the social economic structures of countries that host them and their positive and negative consequences have affected most counties. International immigration takes place for the purpose of improvement of the quality of lives of the immigrants.

In fact, low standards of living in the source country as well as less satisfactory social, economic and political needs lead people to resort to international immigration to seek better life and provide for their needs. International immigration has been investigated in various schools of thought and the positive and negative factors affecting the host countries range from the economic sector to political, social-cultural and physical - environmental sectors.

Economically, immigrants are often times weak and are unable to avail themselves with the basics of life interns of housing, education, health, transportation among others. Adding Immigrants to an already struggling low income population with no concrete plan in sight directly depletes whichever resources are available for an already struggling community or citizenry and compromises the host population of already minimal services antecedent to survival.

In Uganda... A considerate percentage of Ugandans population struggles to access basic needs like clean and safe water, food, education and health facilities. What then becomes of the Afghan migrants now that the government has to cater for another 2000 refugees in such a time?

Admission of the Afghan refugees is so hospitable of Uganda. However, as a country that has just concluded a second wave of the pandemic, is there any plan in place to ensure that these refugees are COVID-19 free before they settle in the country?

What then becomes of the positive cases? The health ministry of Uganda has somewhat already proved to be overwhelmed by the requirements of the COVID-19 with no steady and stable vaccination plan available for the masses.

Will all these questions be answered overnight? With Ugandan citizens complaining about the COVID-19 testing cost and scarcity of vaccines, won’t they instead put the refugees in harm's way? Is the admission a wise decision? Won’t it aid Uganda to another wave ?

Needless to say, crime and breaking of laws is an expected result of human settlement and interaction especially for persons who are new to the laws of a foreign country like Uganda. International immigrant commit many social crimes like drug trafficking, street misbehavior among others.

By violations the socio cultural reforms of the society, immigrants provoke anger in the citizens of the host country. (Wagner 2005 p56) To prove this, mention can be made of Bazzys study in which immigrants in the eastern areas of Iran were introduced as the main factor behind insecurity, corruption, crime and drug trafficking.

The effect of international immigrants on the host country can be assessed politically in terms of issues such as political instability, combination of immigrants ideologies, absorption, unification.

A case in study is the violence resulting from xenophobia for instance weakened cultural identity, cause riots and absence of peace. These negative political elements jeopardize the immigrant receiving country and migrants face the host country with threat. Conflict of different ideologies of immigrants and host country residents could also be a threat to political identity of the host country.

As regards the physical and environmental effect of international immigration on the host country, the Main concern is about the increase in water consumption,environmental destruction and change in the physical appearance of settlements by immigrants especially refugees.

In many cases immigrants aren’t aware of consumption standards of the host country making cooperation with the host country to prevent the waste of resources impossible. Despite the importance of the relationship between immigrants and environmental security, this area hasn’t received much attention.

Important to note is that although the positive impacts of hosting refugees exist; research shows that the negative effects outweigh the positive and for a country like Uganda that clearly struggles with its own citizens, the question stands ;

will the situation be any different after the admission of the 200 Afghans? Is Uganda not becoming the mother that has less to feed her children but keeps adopting more children? Won’t she starve them all?

By Josephine Luzige The writer is an Immigration Lawyer.