Immigrate is sometimes used with “from, “Merriam Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage points out, adding: “Just as ‘emigrate to’ can be understood as ‘to leave there and come to,’ ‘immigrate from’ can be understood as ‘to come here from.’” As an example, the usage guide offers an example from the March 1973 Atlantic magazine: “Pettigrew comes from Richmond, Virginia, but his father immigrated from Scotland.”
But the most interesting note I came across, also from “Merriam Webster’s” usage guide, calls into question whether we should worry about these two words at all. “A large number of handbooks … warn us not to confuse them. Our evidence shows that almost no one does, at least in edited prose.… Distinguishing these words may be less of a problem than is often suggested, as your meaning is essentially the same no matter which you use.”
A better question, it seems to me, is how “migrate” fits into all this. According to the “American Heritage Dictionary,” migrate means “1. to move from one country or region and settle in another, 2. to change location periodically, especially by moving seasonally from one region to another.”
