What is the Difference between an Immigrant and an Emigrant?
The terms emigrant and immigrant are often incorrectly used, creating confusion at best, and annoyance of English teachers at worst. In general understanding the proper usage can help dispel confusion or quell the rage of would be wordsmiths. An emigrant leaves their land to live in another country. The person is emigrating to another country. An immigrant is a person who once resided somewhere else and now lives in your country. For example, a Swedish woman decides to emigrate to America. To herself, and to the country of Sweden, the woman is an emigrant to America. To her new American neighbors, the woman is an immigrant from Sweden, implying she has been somewhere else, and now is here, wherever here happens to be. So she has been an emigrant, in coming to America, and now she is a Swedish immigrant. The term emigrant implies the process of travel. And emigration is the actual act of relocation from country. The person going from one place to another is in the process of emigrating.
