A recent Senate subcommittee found that the largest number of immigrants in the world settle in the United States, which also provides more benefit and funding than any other nation or region. New statistics show that the United States hosts six times the number of immigrants in Latin America ‒ 48 million versus seven million ‒ despite having half the overall population size.
“The US contains about 4.5% of global population but hosts about 20% of the world’s global migrants,” says Alabama senator Jeff Sessions, who is the chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest. “As a matter of comparison, Latin America contains nearly twice as much of the world’s population – more than 8.5% – but houses only about 3.35% of the world’s migrants. While the United States takes in one-fifth of global migrants, no other nation on earth has taken in more the one-twentieth.”
Thousands more Latin American immigrants are currently being resettled and housed by the United States, and the government is now contemplating taking in thousands of refugees from Syria.
The subcommittee report notes that although only around one in 40 immigrants in the United States currently come from North Africa or the Middle East, this figure is growing rapidly. More than one in ten annual permanent immigrants are now Muslim, while only one in 300 North African or Middle Eastern immigrants live in Mexico.