The United States has the largest foreign-born population of any country in the world (roughly 50 million). This is not the highest percentage of the population – many smaller countries have that standing (including Switzerland – but also Germany and Austria). But with a long (albeit erratic) history of previous immigration flows, both voluntary and forced, the US is probably the most diverse country in the world. Without dwelling on the past, though, the challenge is to look at recent trends.
Both the US and Europe are in the midst of political campaigns where immigration is a contentious issue. A previous commentary started with a look at EU trends, and here the objective is to consider whether the US has a more serious challenge than the EU. I have been inclined to think otherwise, in spite of the very visible phenomenon of the numbers of undocumented migrants that have been coming across the US/Mexican border. My American friends laugh at me when I suggest that undocumented in-migration flows into the EU have been rising above 200,000 per year. But that doesn’t explain the whole picture.
I have been trying to come up with comparable numbers, but this has been proving difficult. Perhaps there is a comparable “foreign-born” population number – 50 million for the US, as already noted, and 38 million for the EU. Percentage-wise, this means 15% for the US and 12.5% for the EU. However, the EU and the US don’t measure immigrants in the same way. The EU includes foreign-born students among those with valid residence permits, while the US classifies most foreign-born students in a separate visa category rather than a legal residence category. Then there is the US practice of granting “Green Cards”, essentially a work permit above and beyond any residence permit, a classification that does not exist in the EU data base.
Here are some numbers to mull over:
The US currently operates under a legal framework that authorizes up to 650,000 permanent immigration visas per year. This includes a 140,000 limit on employment-related visas. But there are formulas for modifying these numbers. Suffice it to say here that the US issued 493,448 first-time permanent immigration visas in 2022 (562,976 IN 2023). This is below the authorized visa number. But the US also issued 1.02 million new Green Cards in 2022. And what is more, the US issued some 1.2 million student visas in 2022. Should one add these numbers up? If so, we get a number of 2,720,000. This does not include refugees or asylum seekers or undocumented people or other humanitarian relief measures.
The EU reports that EU member states granted 3.5 million first residence permits in 2022. This number included student visas, which were 12% of the total or 420,000. So evidently, twice as many foreign-born students are studying in the US than in Europe. But the data also suggest that the EU has granted more first-term residence permits for family reunification and employment in 2022 than the US has done. The EU number is roughly 3 million versus 1.5 million for the US. Really now?
Another figure I looked as is “total stock” of permanent residence visas in Europe versus immigrant visas in the US. For the EU, this number is 24 million; for the US, it is 12.7 million. I suspect, however, that the EU numbers (both annual for 2022 and total stock) include people with refugee status. The EU reports show a total of 7.07 million refugees, which is a category probably included in the EU’s immigrant visa numbers. And I also think that this includes people who have been granted asylum by requesting it at the border, not just those who had been cleared elsewhere and entered the EU as refugees (i.e. certified outside of the EU).
And the US? This seems to be where things get strikingly different for the US versus EU. The US has a legal framework for receiving refugees that requires the President to consult with Congress to set a maximum number each year. Under President Obama, this grew to above 100,000 per year but was pulled way back under President Trump and gradually went back up under President Biden. For the past three years, the maximum number was set at 125,000. BUT even under President Biden this number has not been reached. Let’s just stick with data on the year 2022. in this category for 2022, then, the number was only 62,000!
Asylum seeking numbers are another part of this, though. Ignoring the huge influx of undocumented migrants that have apparently crossed the US southern border, which we’ll get to momentarily, the shocking number is that the US reported granting asylum for only 36,615 asylum applicants in 2022. (This is down from the 46,508 in 2019.) The backlog in reviewing asylum applicants is currently sitting at close to 3 million. And yes, the Europeans are also reporting a huge increase in asylum requests (877,800 in 2022), and a case backlog of 966,200 (as of July 2023). But they are also reporting a 49% positive rate of cases approved in 2022 and some 431,200 asylum applicants who were ordered to leave.
I know that the numbers have gotten worse in 2023, but let’s stick with 2022 for comparative purposes. The US Government reported some 2.4 million “migrant encounters” in 2022. These are presumably including the undocumented numbers. The US also reported a backlog of “open removal” cases in October 2023 of some 2.93 million, of which some 782,067 were listed as “defensive asylum” cases (in removal proceedings because they don’t appear to qualify for asylum and are in the process of trying to prove otherwise) and only some 155,544 as “affirmative asylum” cases (not yet having been ruled ineligible but needing to prove their eligibility).
In addition, though, I understand that there are four different “humanitarian relief” alternatives but not sure about the numbers in these categories. Here they are:
- Temporary protected status – deemed unable to return to their home country on account of armed conflict of natural disaster (covers multiple countries, including Venezuela and El Salvador, based on a statutory provision)
- Deferred enforced departure (similar but based on executive action)
- Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)
- Humanitarian parole
In the first two categories, there may be as many as 800,000. DACA has its own rollercoaster-like history but currently covers over 500,000. Each of these categories has slightly different rules but allow for staying temporarily in the US and seeking employment.
The last “humanitarian parole” category has been widely used by President Biden to allow certain categories of potentially asylum-seeking migrants to cross the border if they have a family contact somewhere in the States. They have a year’s reprieve from any dismissal, allowing them to look for gainful employment in the meantime. It’s not clear how many previously undocumented migrants have entered this way, but the parole option has been extended by executive action to include Venezuelans, Haitians, Cubans and Nicaraguans.
Both the EU and the US are confronted with migrants who are trying to enter outside of established legal channels. It seems that the EU is doing a much better job of processing them – with more generous arrangements for legal migration and a more efficient system for adjudicating asylum applicants. The US is entering a Presidential election campaign where at least one if not both candidates are using the absence of border controls as a campaign issue. This is shameful, but a cynical view is that no one is yet ready to mobilize around a comprehensive solution.
Yes, there have been several bipartisan efforts, including one in the US Senate just this year. And this last one was evidently rejected because the Republican Presidential candidate-designate Donald Trump didn’t want it to pass. But even this compromise would have done little to open up legal channels for the demand for immigrant labor in the US. It would seem that enough people are showing up without documentation to fill the jobs that exploitative employers are offering that the momentum for reform is just not there.
It is ridiculous that so many millions of job-seeking migrants are using the asylum mechanisms that don’t really fit their claims. Obviously, large numbers of them do have legitimate claims, but it is clear that the asylum system is also being exploited by many who are not escaping intolerable persecution – just inadequate livelihoods and a credible vision of jobs elsewhere to better sustain them and their dependents. Clearly, the asylum system is not working well for the people who credibly need it, but it seems that the system has been dramatically immobilized because of the manipulation for non-asylum seeking purposes. This is vividly evident in the US border with Mexico, but it is also a contentious issue in Europe.
Will there ever be enough of a public receptivity to expanding legal avenues to migration? The backlash is aggravated by the abuses of the asylum system, but even with that being fixed, it is not clear that either the Americans or the Europeans are ready for receiving more legal migrants. What is more, the environmental deterioration from climate change and urbanization is contributing additional circumstances for migratory movements, independently of the historic rationale for refugees and asylum seekers.
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