Conflict arose between the refugees after the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) intervened in the matter, and improved the squalid living conditions of the refugees. The Chadians got embittered by this gesture as they resent having foreigners enjoy a better standard of living than Chadians, in Chad. They also fear that the Chadians’ economic power over Chadians might translate into political power. Although this may be a valid argument on realist and moral grounds respectively, the Chadians overlook the positive aspects to hosting the Sudanese such as the provision of cheap labor. The Sudanese, by virtue of having better living standards are able to consume more Chadian goods, which lubricates Chad’s gun-arabic and agriculture-based economy.
A similar situation is current in Botswana where multitudes of Zimbabwean immigrants flee because of Zimbabwe’s dire political crisis. The Zimbabwean immigrants although responsible for a considerable proportion of the crime in Botswana, offer cheap labor and also create a market for jobs that the Batswana look down upon and do not take up themselves such as being a maid. This thus refutes the argument that foreigners necessarily take the locals’ jobs. As immigration politics around the world take the center-stage, the xenophobia and paranoia sitting deep in the host countries’ psyche surface. Furthermore, the inseparable good and bad of immigration to the host country can be seen through time irrespective of whether the immigration was coerced or voluntary. By the time humans notice that immigration is not sustainable, tensions are already irreparably grand and there is only one way to go from there: “violent correction”.
