Immigration

A majority of people in several European countries support taking in refugees. Yet there is widespread disapproval of how the EU has handled the refugee issue.

Monthly number of migrant detections by sea (January 2009 to August 2018), by route

The paths migrants have taken across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe have changed over time. So far in 2018, the Morocco-to-Spain corridor has been the most traveled among the three major sea routes used by migrants to reach Europe.

In 2016, 17.2% of U.S. immigrants ages 25 and older had a bachelor’s degree and another 12.8% had attained a postgraduate degree. Both shares are up since 1980.

There were a record 43.7 million immigrants living in the U.S. in 2016, making up 13.5% of the nation’s population.

More than 22.4 million people applied in 2017 to a U.S. visa program that provides 50,000 green cards each year through a lottery system. The number of applicants nearly matched the record 23 million applicants received in 2016 and came as the Trump administration and some members of Congress have sought to eliminate the program – the only one of its kind globally.

At least 65 of the current voting members of Congress are immigrants or the children of immigrants. These members represent nearly half of U.S. states.

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.