How America ranks worldwide in migration

Pew Research Center, drawing on data of immigrant populations compiled by the U.N., highlights several ways to rank America in immigration flows.

See the U.N. 2015 report here; it says that “the number of international migrants worldwide has continued to grow rapidly over the past fifteen years reaching 244 million in 2015, up from 222 million in 2010 and 173 million in 2000.”

The most immigrants. Survey data indicates there are about 41 million foreign-born people in the country (the UN estimates 46.6 million). The next largest foreign-born population is Germany, with 12 million. Note that India and China, countries with three or four times our population, has fewer foreign born.

The largest migration corridor. The U.S.-Mexico migration corridor is the world’s largest. About 12 million residents in the U.S. were born in Mexico. The second largest corridor consists of Indian nationals living in the United Arab Emirates, estimated to be 3.5 million migrants, 40% of whom come from one Indian state, Kerala.

Lower than Canada, Australia others in foreign-born penetration.  Other countries have a much greater share of residents who are foreign-born. We are at about 14%, compared to Canada (22%), Australia (28%) and Gulf countries, where over three quarters of the population are foreign born.

Relatively low share of American citizens live outside the country. More than 3 million people who were born in the U.S. now live in other countries, compared with nearly 16 million Indians who are emigrants. About 12 million Mexican-born people live outside of Mexico, Syria (5 million) and Poland (4.4 million) have larger emigrant populations. About 1% of Americans live outside the U.S, compared to UK (8%), Germany (5% and Canada (4%).

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