Sharp decline in remittances expected in 2020 amid COVID-19 lockdowns in top sending nations
Remittances – money sent by migrants to their home countries – are projected to fall by a record 20% this year.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Remittances – money sent by migrants to their home countries – are projected to fall by a record 20% this year.
The number of people living in sub-Saharan Africa who were forced to leave their homes due to conflict reached a new high of 18.4 million in 2017, up sharply from 14.1 million in 2016 – the largest regional increase of forcibly displaced people in the world.
The 69 immigrants and children of immigrants in the 116th Congress claim heritage in 38 countries and are overwhelmingly Democrats.
The U.S. has taken in 3 million of the more than 4 million refugees resettled worldwide since 1980. But in 2017, the U.S. resettled 33,000 refugees, the country’s lowest total since the years following 9/11.
Nearly 13 million Syrians are displaced after seven years of conflict in their country. No nation in recent decades has had such a large percentage of its population displaced.
Since the end of World War II, there have been 225 successful coups (counting the events in Zimbabwe) in countries with populations greater than 500,000, according to the Center for Systemic Peace, which maintains extensive datasets on various forms of armed conflict and political violence. Most coups occurred during the height of the Cold War, from the 1960s through the 1980s.
The resettlement of refugees in the U.S. has been fairly consistent across the country since 2002, with no state resettling a majority of them. In fiscal year 2017, no state resettled more than 10% of the 53,716 refugees the nation admitted that year.
In 2016, European Union countries, Norway and Switzerland received more than 1.2 million asylum applications, below the record 1.3 million applications received in 2015.
Of the 84,995 refugees admitted to the United States in fiscal year 2016, the largest numbers came from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Syria, Burma (Myanmar) and Iraq.
Millions of people around the world have migrated to the U.S. and other countries in recent years – some voluntarily, others to flee political turmoil, persecution or war.
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