Turkey's transition to an immigration country: a paradigm shift.

• Author: Duvell, Franck
• Position: Report

Anybody visiting or living in Istanbul, Antalya and certain other places in Turkey will recognize the visible presence of foreigners--e.g., Saudi shoppers, Western business people, African street vendors and Syrian refugees--some of whom do not just visit but also live and work in Turkey. In literature and the media, there are references to German, Dutch, British or Swedish retirees, Russian and Ukrainian businessmen and women, Georgian construction workers, Armenian nannies, Moldovan domestic workers and caretakers, Uzbeks and Kirgiz workers, Nigerian street vendors, African football players, Syrian gardeners, Afghans, Egyptian and Somali shop owners or Azerbaijani and other students. A World Bank report even suggests that at some point after 2007, Turkey--after decades of being a sending country for labor migrants and refugees--became a net immigration country, hosting a comparably small but increasing number of immigrants plus a significant number of refugees. This implies that Turkey, fuelled by economic growth and relative political stability, went through a migration transition from an emigration to an immigration country. Academics were the first to highlight these developments; (1) meanwhile, this became widely acknowledged in Turkish policy circles. (2) However, the Turkish public is probably less aware of this shift and Western observers are still largely concerned with Turkey's image as an emigration country. In any case, this paradigm shift is of enormous social, economic and political relevance and is of historical significance.

For Turkey, the increasing international mobility and immigration of non-ethnic Turks or non-Muslims represents a new cultural and political challenge, which requires a fresh approach to studying Turkey and migration as well as innovative political responses. Notably for 'the West' and in particular the EU, it is time to rectify the ever more inappropriate perception of Turkey as an emigration country and reconsider the long-lasting fear of a potential 'flood' of Turkish migrants. Assessing Turkey's actual migration situation is thus not only an academic exercise, but also a politically relevant undertaking that contributes to the knowledge base of Turkish domestic politics and clarifies Turkey's position in the global migration order, which should be relevant to the international relations stakeholder.

This paper thus sets out to explore the level and diversity of immigration to Turkey, notably that of non-ethnic Turks. It also considers some of the socio-politico-economic discrepancies between Turkey, its neighbors and major migrant-sending countries that are usually understood as drivers of migration.

Immigration to Turkey

Modern migration in the territory that is now Turkey went through four historical stages. During Ottoman times, the Ottoman Empire was a space of migration within the empire as well as of immigration from more distant regions; the arrival of Polish, Spanish, Jewish or Tatar migrants and refugees are only the most prominent examples. (3) In the early to mid-20th century, during the break-up of the Ottoman Empire and the founding of the Republic of Turkey, it was an immigration country fuelled by population exchanges mostly with Greece and then the immigration of ethnic Turks from other parts of the former empire. From the 1960s to the 1990s, movements in Turkey were dominated by emigration, first of labor migration to the EU which ended in the early 1970s and later the Gulf countries, among others. Although labor emigration continues today, for example, to North Africa or Russia, it is now down to only a few ten thousand. Second, after the 1970s, the so-called guest-worker emigration was followed by family-related emigration, which also continues today, though on lower levels. Third, there was then also forced migration of refugees, but this faded out by the early 2000s. Finally, during the late 20th century, the country slowly turned into an immigration country again.

"Immigration has been an essential and constitutive element since the early days of Turkey's existence as a nation-state, with international migration to Turkey being almost exclusively constituted of ethnic-Turkish population from bordering countries." (4)

The recent period of immigration to Turkey still includes ethnic Turks, either first generation returnees or second generation ethnic Turks from Germany and other so-called guest-worker countries. It is estimated that from the early 1920s to late 1990s, 1.7 million ethnic Turkish Muslims, mostly from the Balkans, moved to Turkey. (5) This included 200,000 Turks and Pomaks who were expelled from Bulgaria in 1989 (another 100,000 eventually returned to Bulgaria). In addition, a large portion of the 38,000 Muslim refugees that arrived in the mid to late-1990s from Bosnia and Kosovo and the 17,000 or so Ahiska or Meskhetian Turks from various parts of the former Soviet Union stayed in Turkey. (6) Finally, during the emigration period, Turks also returned to Turkey, sometimes after having spent many years abroad. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, an average of 45,000 Turks returned annually from Germany, which dropped to just over 35,000 during the 2000s. (7) In recent years, this has also included ethnic Turks who hold foreign nationalities and were born or spent most their lives in other countries. The majority of these more recent ethnic migrants or returnees are 25 to 50 years old and thus still economically active. (8) However, the recent period is also characterized by an increasing number of non-ethnic Turkish and/or non-Muslim immigrants arriving in Turkey for various purposes, such as business, employment, education, recreation, retirement and international protection. This paper mainly deals with this category of international, non-ethnic Turkish immigrants.

In migration studies, a distinction is made between flows, inflows and outflows, and migrant stock, meaning the number of foreign-born migrants who reside in a given country. However, national and local data on flows and immigration to Turkey is imprecise and incomplete. The Turkish Statistics Institute (Turk-Stat) explains that "flow data, immigration and emigration statistics cannot be produced from ABPRS [addressed-based registry] or any other administrative data sources." (9) This is partly due to insufficient record-taking but also to migrants' often irregular strategies which hinders effective monitoring. Furthermore, "settled foreigners [did] not acquire a residence permit. They can choose to stay in the country having just a tourist visa and it [was] easy to extend the duration of this visa." (10) They are thus not recorded as de facto immigrants but as tourists. The new Law on Foreigners and International Protection (2013) is going to change this and thus will contribute to better statistics. Nevertheless, implementation will take time.

Migration Flows

The travel of foreigners to and from Turkey has almost tripled over the last decade, from 23 million arrivals and departures in 2001 to around 63 million in 2011; in addition, Turkish citizens made a recorded 23 million journeys. Mobility to and from Turkey increased across all countries, whether it is from or to the UK, Ukraine or South Korea. However, flows from Germany are the highest, with 9.5 million movements, while citizens from Britain, the Netherlands and France account for 5 million, 2.4 million and 2.2 million travelers, respectively. Travel to and from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) has quadrupled to almost 13 million visitors, while another 5 million from Asian countries, 4 million from the Middle East and Gulf countries, 1.5 million from the U.S. and .9 million from African countries were recorded.

Notably flows from Russia have almost quintupled from just 1.5 million in 2001 to almost 7 million in 2011. Indeed, Russia is now the second most important country of origin of travelers. Flows from China have also quadrupled, although it remains low (192,000). (11)

A small proportion of these flows represent emigrants from and immigrants to Turkey. According to the World Bank, net immigration--the balance between emigration and immigration--between 2009 and 2013 was +350,000 and up from -50,000 in 2007.12 This suggests that on average 70,000 more people per year immigrated than emigrated. For instance, in 2010, net immigration was supposed to be 62,000, a number that includes work permits holders (11,800 in 2011) and 8,400 new foreign students.13 On the other hand, by the early 2000s, there were fewer than 50,000 people, one-third of which was family-related migration, while the others were students or workers who went to the European Union. In 2011, another 53,800 mostly temporary labor migrants were officially recorded by the Turkish Employment Office (ISKUR). (14) From these numbers, it can be calculated that at least 175,000 people annually enter Turkey to stay for longer periods of time, outnumbering emigration and turning Turkey's migration balance positive. Other sources claim that even up to "250,000 people ... enter Turkey each year with the intention of staying longer, be it for education, employment, or retirement" (15) Finally, there is some overlap between short-term visits on tourist and labor visas and other forms of migration: some short-term visits, notably from CIS countries but also from Africa, are actually one-off or repeated entries for economic purposes, either for suitcase trade or for short-term or seasonal employment, and can subsequently lead to longer stays. Short-term visits can also disguise...