> U.S. still top destination as desire to migrate falls worldwide
So the US is still the top destination by a wide margin. Part of the decline is attributable to a global drop in desire to migrate at all.
Recent politics is undoubtedly part of it, but if you assumed the US had fallen behind other countries you should probably read the article.
The average worldwide is down but that downward trend is largely due to the US. Canada and Japan are up and most other countries are about the same. UK is the only other own with a notable downward trend
US market share of global desire to migrate
2007 - 24%
2016 - 20%
2017 - 18%
2025 - 15%
Canada is #2 and moved up from 7% to 9%
2025 per capita, Est. Would-Be Migrants / Country Population, top 4 + US and UK:
Canada: 2.18
Australia: 1.47
Saudi Arabia: 1.17
Spain: 0.82
UK: 0.58
USA: 0.44
2025 per GDP, Est. Would-Be Migrants / Nominal GDP, top 5:
USA: $85.4k
Australia: $65.8k
Germany: $55.7k
Canada: $54.2k
UK: $52.6k
2025 estimated would-be migrants / destination population, top 4 +UK,US
Canada 1.93
Australia 1.29
Saudi Arabia 0.76
Spain 0.73
UK 0.51
US 0.39
2025 estimated nominal GDP / estimated would-be migrants, same countries
USA $228.5k
UK $110.8k
Spain $52.9k
Australia $51.2k
Saudi Arabia $47.4k
Canada $28.4k
I did the math on the latter. Higher numbers mean more migration per km² of land, I made US 100% to allow easy relative comparison:
United Kingdom 1076
Germany 918
Japan 694
Italy 653
Spain 519
France 407
United States 100
Saudi Arabia 91
Canada 59
Australia 34
Canada 494
Australia 333
Saudi Arabia 193
Spain 186
Germany 136
France 132
United Kingdom 131
Italy 115
United States 100
Japan 73
Now if we wanted to make that even fairer it would probably be good to have a metric of migrants per km of built-on or habitable land or something to avoid skewing results for countries with a whole lot of inhabitable nothing in some areas. Canada and Australia are on the bottom in the first list (big countries with little population in comparison to their size) while they are on top in the per capita list.
As you can see it isn't as easy as it seems at first. What do we want to look at? Is it about land use? Is it about how big of a fraction is migrants? Or do we want to look at migrant per USD of GDP to see who would have the best/worst capacity to support migrants? Maybe we want to look at job markets?
All of that changes as you want to change the story, but what does not make sense is to just use absolute numbers based on national borders.
Most other countries on the chart didn’t change much because going from 4% to 5% is in the noise.
The US started at a whopping 24% and ended at a number that’s still significantly higher than other countries.
As I said, politics played a role for sure, but when I read the comments before the article I expected to read about the US falling out of favor relative to other countries, which it has not.
Because every H1B who planned to migrate to the US but got locked out by Trump is choosing Canada as the next best thing. That makes Canada sloppy seconds after the US, not more desirable than the US, assuming everything else being equal.
If you look at the chart most of the decline happened before the Brexit vote, let alone Brexit. Since the brexit vote it has dropped from 5% to 4% which is not precipitous.
My niece was thinking of working in Ireland for a while and I told her that if she happened to stay for 5 years she could get an EU passport. It's a valuable thing.
As a first generation (just - I was six years old!) immigrant I am quite happy my parents (my dad's employer gave him a choice) picked the UK over the US, and I cannot think of anywhere that would be better for me.
Moving countries has hard - having done it a few times. Even going to places where you known people and know the system.
Looking at the rise of parties like AfD, National Rally, PVV etc. the EU is far more hostile to non-white immigrants.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/24/nearly-quar...
EU nations accepted millions of non-white migrants, especially post 2015 open border policy.
Reform polls higher than Restore but it turned down Elon Musk's money because it came with the condition that they allow the best known of the Unite the Kingdom leaders to join their party. Either it is to their credit, or they realise that voters would turn against them if they let him in.
The second Unite the Kingdom rally was less than half the size of the first: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/may/16/tommy-robin... My guess is that people went to the first as an anti-illegal immigration and asylum seeker protest and and as people have realised the real aims of the people behind it support has dropped.
What about this? https://www.dw.com/en/italy-thousands-attend-anti-and-pro-mi...
Its generally nothing to do with religion, apart from hostility to Islam. Its not hostility to non-Christians, its hostility to Muslims. What those sorts of people say about Muslims is very similar to what they said about Jews a 100 years ago, or about Catholics 200 years ago. Neither of those prejudices has entirely died (I read an article by a Labour politician whose colleagues used to ask whether he was waiting for orders from Rome) but its at nothing like historical levels.
Mostly talk of religion is a cover for talking about skin colour. Its also an attempt to import American style "Christian" nationalism which i think is going to fail because the UK does not have the same history, culture, or religion as the US: https://pietersz.co.uk/2026/10/christian-nationalism.
A lot of these people are "cultural Christians" which pretty much anyone can be. The range of "cultural Christian" goes from Richard Dawkins to Anders Breivik!
I'm not talking about "the racists", but normal people and how they perceive normal world as they go thru their normal day.
When living in a country that had a very high per capita emigration rate, I realised a lot of people had a very rosy tinted view of the rest of the world and their prospects there.
1. Legal immigrants - mostly need skills or money (sometimes family ties or ancestry). They are mostly better off building a better life where they are.
2. Illegal immigrants - still need money (for people smugglers), get the worst jobs once they get there, and its a huge risk. They are also usually better off building a better life where they are.
Unless fleeing war or severe persecution most people are better off where they are these days.
Also, as someone in another comment said, the world is wealthier as a whole and there are more opportunities in many places.
That's not what the article suggests at all.
The drop is calculated only from those who want to move.
Yes, it's still #1, but the drop that isn't a result of people not wanting to move. Instead, people that want to move are picking the US as the destination a lot less.
A drop in the desire to emigrate might have had a higher impact on groups who would have preferred the US, for example.
Second, if you're right, that's worse.
The concern is that smart, productive, capable people now have better alternatives.