Some might think those issues are faced only by Global North countries. Nevertheless, they extend far more to create serious structural deficiencies in developing countries.
According to the UN DESA (2024), international migrants constituted 3.7% of the world's population in 2024. This translates into more than 304M migrants who left their countries and settled in others for numerous reasons. The same source indicates that most migrations are directed towards the countries of the Global North.
Migration: A Powder Keg?
European countries suffered from one of the heaviest migrant flows. The social and cultural spectrum of these societies started eroding, making them prone to neutralisation and shift in terms of values, standards and culture.
Even the claims of the role migration plays in bringing cultures together are fallacious due to several reasons; the most prominent of which is the spread of criminality rates among immigrants. For example, reports by the Police of the Czech Republic in 2023 indicate that 69% of economy-related crimes were committed by Czechs, while 31% were associated with foreigners.
These numbers are extremely significant as foreigners constitute only 9.8% of the population, yet they contribute to 31% of economic offences. Such is the case in France, as cited in Journal du Dimanche (2025); though immigrants represent 8% of the population, they contribute to 38% of burglaries.
Undoubtedly, facts such as these might be justified by immigrants' social conditions, especially illegal ones.
It is true that some of them are homeless and do not have access to various basic needs, prompting them to commit related offences. Still, why have them in a country apart from their own? Why do states have to cope with them in the first place and with their necessities, especially when they are crossing borders illegally?
Narratives like these can be widely attributed to xenophobia. Espousers of immigration limitation might be immediately called xenophobic only for their aim to limit such a largely negative phenomenon.
Perhaps, those who call for tolerance of illegal immigration and defend the advent of more migrants are the direct cause of more xenophobia. When a country has hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants, they are expected to commit different law breaks in order to get what they need. Accordingly, citizens of the country can tend to create a distorted image of a certain culture, based on only its citizens' offensive practices.
According to a review by Mason & Moris (2010), cultural attribution or automaticity is a human nature. Thus, it is often expected from a country's nationals to base their future thoughts and behaviour towards other cultures, especially those from the Global South, on conducts of the immigrant population as a significant sample.
Why is Migration also Bad for Developing Countries?
It might be a little bit perplexing to decipher how migration is detrimental for developing countries. One might think that such countries only benefit from this migration.
Yes, emerging states profit from lowering unimployability rates and more hard currency. Nevertheless, the ramifications are much more significant. They range from cultural, ideological, developmental to economic.
In the closest zones of the Global South to the Global North, ideas pillared on 'the other side is green' are extensively centralised. Findings of the National Survey on International Migration by Morocco's HCP in 2018-2019 indicate how the idea of immigration as the ultimate solution preys on the minds of a large population, whether it is for Moroccan nationals or other migrants residing in the country.
This endangers the societal fabric of the source countries with serious menaces. Young generations will be more likely to grow up thinking that their states have nothing to provide, limiting their productivity and ambitions to thrive.
Knowing that there is another environment that hosts manual labour for what they deem a high salary, youth might tend to stop their education earlier. This engenders the emergence of low-educated citizens.
Furthermore, even those whose qualities do not qualify them for any jobs apart from physical ones are more likely to stay unemployed in the countries of origin, believing that there are the same jobs available in the Global North countries but with higher wages.
To fathom this impact, a clear example may be deduced from the Moroccan employability landscape. Moroccan newspaper les Éco reports that there is a severe shortage in blue-collar workers in the country as of 2026. This bespeaks the total sociocultural situation of people favouring being unemployed rather than accepting demanding work that they will be readied to endorse should they have migrated.
Another initial consequence of the proliferation of such an ensemble of ideas in emerging states is the spread of trends that undermine the local culture and internal developmental efforts.
One of the most fallacious claims is saying that misrepresentation of a given culture is the result of cultural hegemony by the Global North countries. As of now, it is the residents of the Global South who fail to integrate into various continental and national initiatives, sticking to the idea that their cultures are always inferior to others' and that nothing can be changed about this.
What to do?
The geopolitical landscape appears to be puzzling when seeking potential solutions for the ever-escalating problem of immigration.
Initial remedies should focus on using all means deemed fit to protect borders from immigrants' invasions, as is being done along the border between Mexico and the USA. This action is a sine qua non for eradicating youth's ideas on immigration as an ultimate ambition.
Having applied strict restrictions on global immigration, a creative environment might be created in the countries of origin. This creativity and developmental aspirations stem from the element of 'need & necessity'.
When the Global South's youth become confident of the fact that they have no haven to which they can go to change their socioeconomic situation, they will be forced to think of domestic solutions.
They will also be involved in political life, tailoring appropriate developmental initiatives. Additionally, they will be pushed to be a part of the change in their countries, realising that if they wanted a better milieu, they would have to build it themselves.