Most Americans view openness to foreigners as ‘essential to who we are as a nation’
For a large majority of Americans, the country’s openness to people from around the world “is essential to who we are as a nation.” In a new Pew Research Center survey, 68% say America’s openness to foreigners is a defining characteristic of the nation, while just 26% say “if America is too open to people from all over the world, we risk losing our identity as a nation.”
A majority of Europeans favor taking in refugees, but most disapprove of EU’s handling of the issue
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.
A decade of migration across Mediterranean to Europe's shores
Monthly number of migrant detections by sea (January 2009 to August 2018), by route
The most common Mediterranean migration paths into Europe have changed since 2009
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.
Education levels of U.S. immigrants are on the rise
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.
2016, Foreign-Born Population in the United States Statistical Portrait
There were a record 43.7 million immigrants living in the U.S. in 2016, making up 13.5% of the nation’s population.
Applications for U.S. diversity visa lottery remained near record in 2017
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.
Immigrants or children of immigrants make up at least 12% of 115th Congress
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.
Number of foreign college graduates staying in U.S. to work climbed again in 2017, but growth has slowed
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.
5 key takeaways about populism and the political landscape in Western Europe
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.