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- Record immigration to affluent countries is sparking bigger backlashes across the world, boosting populist parties and putting pressure on governments to tighten policies to stem the migration wave. … The backlashes repeat a long cycle in immigration policy, experts say.
www.nytimes.com › 2023/07/11 › briefing
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How has migration shaped the world?
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Where do international migrants come from?
Why do humans migrate?
Of the global annual flow of around 15 million migrants, most fit into one of four categories: economic (6 million), student (4 million), family (2 million), and refugee/asylum (3 million). There are about 20 million officially recognized refugees worldwide, with 86% of them hosted by neighbouring countries, up from 70% 10 years ago.
There are an estimated 272 million international migrants – 3.5% of the world’s population. While most people leave their home countries for work, millions have been driven away due to conflict, violence and climate change. Most migrants come from India; the United States is the primary destination.
A great deal has happened in migration in the last two years since the release of the last World Migration Report in late 2021. The last two years saw major migration and displacement events that have caused great hardship and trauma, as well as loss of life.
- Overview
- First migrants
- Reasons to flee
Homo sapiens have been on the move from almost their beginnings. Climate-caused floods, drought, and water shortages will likely join the list of reasons to migrate.
Rohingyan refugees, forced to migrate to Bangladesh from Myanmar, walk in search of refugee camps.
The earliest migrants were ancient humans who originated on the African continent. Their spread to Eurasia and elsewhere remains a matter of significant scientific controversy. The earliest fossils of recognizable Homo sapiens were found in Ethiopia and are approximately 200,000 years old.
The “out of Africa” theory posits that around 60,000 years ago, Homo sapiens dispersed across Eurasia, where they met and eventually replaced other human ancestors like Neanderthals. However, that theory has been challenged by evidence of migrations from Africa to Eurasia 120,000 years ago. Either way, early humans are thought to have migrated to Asia either across a strait that lies between the Horn of Africa and what is now Yemen, or via the Sinai Peninsula. After spreading to southeast Asia, early humans are thought to have migrated to Australia, which shared a landmass with New Guinea at the time, then to Europe, then to the Americas.
Migration has long been characterized and complicated by war, enslavement, and persecution. Jews fled their ancestral lands after waves of exile and the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., creating a widespread diaspora. At least 12 million Africans were enslaved and forced to relocate to the Americas during the transatlantic slave trade between 1500 and the 1860s. In the aftermath of World War II in 1945, hundreds of thousands of Holocaust survivors and other civilians became displaced persons, emigrating to Western Europe, the territory of British-Mandate Palestine that later became Israel, and the United States. And at the end of the Vietnam War, over 125,000 people from Vietnam migrated to the United States in the face of a humanitarian crisis.
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Haunting Video Shows the Rohingya Refugee Crisis
Watch: In just weeks, hundreds of thousands of people of the Rohingya ethnicity have fled persecution in Myanmar.
They weren’t the last: Migration continues in the 21st century, driven by famine, natural disasters, and human rights abuses. Beginning in 2013, migrants from North Africa and the Middle East began to move in increasingly larger numbers into Europe, seeking to escape poverty and political instability in their homelands. The migrant crisis stretched European resources thin, fueling xenophobia and frustration even in welcoming states. And hundreds of thousands of Rohingya people have been forced to migrate to Bangladesh from Myanmar despite centuries of history in their homeland.
In the future, the changing climate may fuel even more mass movements. A 2018 World Bank report found that more than 143 million people may soon become “climate migrants,” driven from their homes by floods, droughts, and water scarcity. No matter the reasons, migration will likely continue as long as there are humans—and as long as there are places to go.
The contemporary narrative on migration, with its negative impacts on society, is a dominant theme in politics and the media. Exceptional People is a comprehensive and objective study of migration that convincingly counters this narrative with research rather than bold rhetoric.
At a time when “fake news” is increasing and more countries are adopting nationalist frameworks, the data and information in the recently released World Migration Report 2020 provides a more accurate picture of international migration and displacement.
Mar 25, 2020 · COVID-19 has caused unprecedented mobility restrictions. Whether by creating longer-term economic stress, greater inequality, more vulnerability to forced migrants, and increases in irregular migration, it could also be fundamentally changing the face of global migration.
