TEHRAN – Migrants are uninvited guests who often leave their homeland due to coercion caused by internal, and political tensions, or in the most optimistic case, to acquire science or technology, in the meantime, 1.8 million Iranians also immigrated.

On December 18, 1990, the General Assembly adopted a resolution on the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families.

Each year on December 18, the United Nations, through the UN-related agency International Organization for Migration (IOM), uses International Migrants Day to highlight the contributions made by the roughly 272 million migrants, including more than 41 million internally displaced persons, and the challenges they face.

Each year on December 18, International Migrants Day is marked to highlight the contributions made by the roughly 272 million migrants and the challenges they face.According to statistics, the population of refugees in the world was estimated at 281 million people in 2020, which constitutes 3.6 percent of the world’s population.

Meanwhile, the population of Iranian immigrants in the world is 1.8 million people according to the latest available statistics in 2020, which constitutes 2.23 percent of Iran’s population. However, according to internal sources, the population of Iranian immigrants abroad is 4.04 million people, although this statistic cannot be verified based on international sources.

The population of Iranian immigrants in the world during 1990 was 820,000 people, and this figure increased to 1.8 million people in 2020. In fact, during the last 30 years, the population of Iranian immigrants has increased 2.2 times.

While Iran’s share of the world’s population is about 1.07 percent, the Iranian immigrant population has increased from 0.54 percent in 1990 to 0.70 percent in 2020, which is still lower than Iran’s share of the global population, therefore, it has never reached the 1 percent over the past three decades.

According to the UNHCR statistics in 2021, about 21.5 million people in the world are asylum seekers. Among them, the countries of Syria, Afghanistan, and South Sudan have the largest number of people in refugee status in the world. Also, the citizens of Venezuela, Afghanistan, and Iraq have the highest share of asylum seekers in the world.

Among the 10 main refugee-hosting countries in the world, Iran is in ninth place with 798,343 people. However, in recent years and following the rule of the Taliban over Afghanistan, forecasts indicate that 4.5 to 5 million Afghans will immigrate to Iran. Most of these people are considered unauthorized citizens due to illegal entry. The United States, Peru, and Turkey also host the highest number of asylum seekers in the world.

Meanwhile, Germany, France, and Spain are the main destinations of new asylum seekers.

Which nations have the most asylum seekers?

In 2020, asylum applications were mostly filed by nationals of Venezuela, Afghanistan, and Syria. While more than four-fifths of Venezuelan asylum applications were filed in America, almost all Afghans and Syrians filed their asylum applications in Europe.

In 2020, 33,800 refugees from 126 countries of origin received citizenship in 28 countries, while there was no significant change in the number of countries that reported granting citizenship to refugees compared to 2019 (28 countries in 2020 and 25 countries in 2019).

Out of a total of 33,800 cases of citizenship in the world, the Netherlands is in the first place by granting citizenship to 25,700 people (three-quarters of all cases of granting citizenship). In general, 85 percent of the cases in 2020 were issued by European countries. In addition, in 2020, after the Netherlands, two countries of Canada and France, respectively, granted the highest number of citizenship permissions to refugees.

99% of immigrants in Iran are Afghans

Before the recent wave of immigration, 95 percent of immigrants to Iran were Afghans, 2.5 percent were Iraqis, and the rest were Pakistanis, Lebanese, Yemenis, Syrians, and Nigerians, but after the events happened in Afghanistan, currently, about 99 percent of the immigrants in Iran are Afghans.

Before the Taliban took over Afghanistan, Iran was host to about 3.5 million immigrants, 1.5 million of whom were legal immigrants and the rest were illegal, but after that, about 1 to 1.5 million immigrants entered Iran. Therefore, in total, more than 2,600,000 immigrants are illegally living in Iran.

In the United States, illegal immigrants are even deprived of education in schools, but in Iran, education is free for foreign nationals, and it can be said that the children of all immigrants, except for some of the newly arrived, benefit from free education, which is unprecedented in the world. Last year, Iran opened its borders to Afghans who left their country after the arrival of the Taliban and was praised in international forums.

Iranian citizenship to children born to Iranian women, foreign men

Under a new nationality law, which was amended in 2019, nearly 105,000 children at risk of becoming stateless are eligible for Iranian citizenship which allows children under 18 years to apply for identity documents.

Some 105,000 below the age of 18 years have filed applications, while, 14000 of whom have so far received birth certificates and ID cards.

According to the law, children of Iranian women and non-Iranian men who were born before or after the law can be Iranian citizens in case the Iranian mother requested that they have no security problems before the age of 18.

These children, after reaching the age of 18, can apply for Iranian citizenship if not requested by the mother, then will be granted Iranian citizenship in case of no security problem.

Migration of human resources: an opportunity or a threat?

What differentiates the problem of manpower migration in developing and less developed countries from developed countries is the loss of human capital forever. In other words, what turns immigration into a negative thing is the need of the country of origin, which is if the necessary platforms are provided to use the capacity of immigrants abroad, not only brings economic benefits, but it will also lead to the transfer of skills, knowledge, ideas and wealth across national borders.

In other words, the threat of migration of human resources, especially specialized human resources, can become an opportunity to benefit from the capital, knowledge, network, etc. of immigrants. The distinguishing feature of countries in terms of the opportunity or threat of immigration is the way countries face the issue, politicize and manage it.

FB/MG