At CPAC this year, there was a lot of conservative rhetoric about immigration, but no one hit harder or lower than pundit Ann Coulter, who slammed Republicans for considering a deal on immigration reform. “You're talking about bringing in 1.2 million poor people per year,” she said.
But where, exactly, are those immigrants coming from—and how does that compare to global migration statistics?
A new tool from the Migration Policy Institute shows us. Using data from the United Nations Population Division, MPI has produced an interactive map that will show you to the nearest thousand the number of immigrants to, and emigrants from, all countries as of mid-2013 (when the UN study was published).
The map, which allows you to select by country and by immigrants or emigrants, is a font of fun facts. For instance: While there are 13 million Mexican immigrants in the U.S., more Americans immigrate to Mexico (849,000) than to any other country. Or: There are more Ukrainians in Russia (3 million) than from any other country, and there are more Russians in Ukraine (3.5 million) than from any other country.
Not all migrations are accounted for. Syrians, for example, immigrate to the U.S. and Saudi Arabia more than to any other countries, but the MPI map doesn't include the approximately 2.5 million Syrian refugees who have fled their homes to neighboring countries since the outbreak of civil war in 2011.