Immigration & Migration

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.

A record 276,500 foreign graduates received work permits under the Optional Practical Training program in the U.S. in 2017, up from 257,100 in 2016.

People with populist views in Western Europe are more likely than those with mainstream views to distrust traditional institutions. While populist attitudes span the ideological spectrum in Western Europe, populist political parties are relatively unpopular in the region.

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.

About eight-in-ten Twitter users who tweeted about immigration with a link in the first month of the Trump presidency shared at least one tweet that had a link to a news site.

While there has been considerable attention on illegal immigration into the U.S. recently, opinions about legal immigration have undergone a long-term change.

The differences over immigration policy between Germany’s Christian Democratic Union and Christian Social Union are also evident among backers of the parties.

Nationalist and anti-immigrant attitudes in Western Europe have been an issue in a number of recent national elections around the region. But Western Europeans vary by country when it comes to having positive or negative views about immigrants and religious minorities.

Nearly three-quarters of Americans favor granting permanent legal status to immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally when they were children.

Migration, racial or ethnic self-identity, and marriage were among the many topics explored at the Population Association of America’s annual meeting last month.