I think it has its place. There is a clear difference between someone coming to a country for a limited time to do some specialized work with the intention of leaving, compared to someone who has little or no intention of ever returning to their country of origin. Both categories are incompareble in the type of support they need (or want), where they live, whether they need to learn the language, etc. Just ignoring the difference is a bit silly.

Although I agree the term is misused sometimes.

[–] ikka@lemmy.sdf.org 7 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/mar/13/white-people-expats-immigrants-migration

There is definitely a distinction between expatriate and immigrant, but I have very very rarely seen it used properly. As the previous poster wrote, it really does feel like the main difference between an expat and an immigrant, colloquially, is the color of skin.