Northern America · data through 2024
The United States hosts more people born abroad than any other country, roughly one in every six residents.
Twenty five year view
These lines show migrant stock, meaning people living outside their birth country at each point in time. They do not show annual arrivals.
Why people move
Arrivals come through family reunification, employment, study, humanitarian routes, and the diversity programme, with Mexico, India, China, and the Philippines the largest origins. Backlogs across the system leave millions in long waits.
Connections
Common destinations
Mexico, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan
Common origins
Mexico, India, China, Philippines, El Salvador, Vietnam, Cuba
Adapting and finding support
Status determines nearly everything, from work and travel to a driving licence. Children who are citizens frequently live in households where an adult is not.
Only accredited representatives or licensed attorneys may give immigration advice, and notaries may not.
Use the support guideResearch that explains this pattern
Psychology
Children of immigrants do not follow one path. Outcomes depend on the parents' resources, the strength of the community, and the reception they meet.
The same family can produce very different outcomes across cities and school systems.
Alejandro Portes and Rubén Rumbaut, segmented assimilation
Psychology
Repeated discrimination, vigilance, and the expectation of rejection accumulate into a chronic health burden.
Health outcomes worsen with time in a hostile setting, even as income and language improve.
Ilan Meyer, minority stress model, extended to immigrant populations
Anthropology
Each person who arrives lowers the cost and risk for the next, through housing, jobs, information, and trust. The route becomes self sustaining.
Corridors persist long after the original cause has faded, and policy alone rarely closes them.
Douglas Massey and colleagues, cumulative causation and network theory
Support inside and beyond United States
Free and low cost immigration legal services searchable by location.
Anyone needing immigration legal help
OpenFood, housing, transport, and financial assistance near a postcode.
Households in need of local services
OpenResettlement, cash and medical assistance, and integration services.
Refugees and eligible arrivals
OpenThese are public organisations. The project is not affiliated with them and cannot guarantee outcomes. Nothing here is legal advice or an emergency service.
Figures are rounded published estimates. Causes and adaptation differ within every country and should not be read as a verdict about any person.