The Impact of Migration

Can migrations have a positive impact on the people and/or land receiving the immigrants?

Yes and no. Migration can have both a positive and negative affect on the land and its inhabitants. When people migrate to a new area, the bring their religions, languages, customs, ideas, foods, etc. with them, which helps form change in society. Migration also helps develop trade routes, which are important aspects in any civilization. Within trade, people are able to exchange and receive goods, as well as other traits from people's nations, so things are spread around and accumulate around the world. This creates more diversity.

However, in addition to helpful new changes and ideas, it takes a toll on the people and their surroundings. When people migrate from different places, they could bring disease with them and infect the people around them, causing illness and even death. Also, the population would increase, making the area more crowded. Over-populated places are likely to have a shortage in food, leading to starvation and death. Lastly, because there are more people, more food needs to be grown. Even though there would be many new crops to supply the people with, growing so much of anything would wear out the soil. All in all, migration - good or bad - helped shape the world to what it is today.