So criminals who were sent here from Great Britain were not immigrants. The same goes for Australia’s early colonists.
Interesting how captured blacks from Africa were chained in the hold of a ship for weeks, barely fed sold again into slavery in the south, their families torn apart in slave auctions and are compared to convicted criminals sent to Georgia which was a penal state and to Australia. When someone is forcibly sent to another country that is not immigration. They didn’t voluntarily go. Those folks coming through Ellis Island in New York were there voluntarily, wanting to immigrate. Those others had no choice in the matter. But I guess, liberal reinterpretation of the meanings of words to suit their emotional well being is now the norm.