Are You an Immigrant or a Visitor?

What exactly does it mean to be an immigrant? Merriam-Webster, defines one as "a person who comes to a country to take up permanent residence". What does permanent residence mean? Till you die? Is it in the intent i.e. the intention at the time of migration to make your destination your permanent residence?

Take for example, a student who leaves their home country and moves to the USA to study. The intention at the time is to study and obtain a degree and return home. However, after graduation, many of us choose to look for work and decide to stay without actually making an active decision to become an immigrant i.e. to take up permanent residence?

We find ourselves working, buying a home, starting a family, participating in our communities, in essence putting down roots while we talk about returning back home as our immediate and future goal.

We never acknowledge that we are immigrants. Instead we live as visitors with one foot in our adopted countries and one foot back in our home countries that we long to return to as soon as "circumstances allow". And yet, most of us never return home. We live out our days in our adopted country that we never acknowledged as our home.

What are the consequences of not making the decision to be an immigrant, of not making the decision to make a permanent home, of having one foot in each country?

I can think of 2 major costs to having one foot in each country. Emotionally, you will never belong to your adopted country because in the back of your mind you plan to return home. If you move from a developing country to a developed country, chances are that the standards of living, the way of life is so different that it becomes impossible to return home after being away for so many years. The longer you stay away from home, the harder it is to return. So you live the majority of your years, your most productive years, as a visitor only to return home in your retirement to a way of life that has become foreign to you and where in turn you feel that you are a visitor.

There are also financial consequences for this indecision. If you are currently in the USA, you may not save enough for your retirement if you have plans to "retire" back home, thinking that it would be cheaper to retire at home. However, you would be surprised at the cost of living in your home country especially in developing countries. The cost of living in these countries has increased dramatically and once you figure in the cost of the things you have been accustomed to in the USA then retirement at home is not as cheap as you might imagine. So at retirement you find yourself in a situation that you can not afford. You can't afford to retire in the US and you can't afford to retire in your home country.

Have you decided if you are an immigrant or a visitor? If not, why have you not made the decision? What factors did you consider? What other costs are there for this indecision?