U.S. Hosts 6 Times More Migrants than Every Latin American Country Combined

The United States resettles more migrants than any other country in the world and six times more migrants then all the Latin American nations combined, according to an analysis by Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest.

A chart released Friday by the office of subcommittee Chairman Jeff Sessions (R-AL) highlights that although the U.S. has about half the population of Latin America, it is host to six times as many migrants. The analysis is based on data from the United Nations’ “International Migration Report 2013.”

According to the chart, the 21 nations comprising Latin America host a combined 7.8 million migrants. Meanwhile the U.S. hosts about 45.8 million.

Broken down into regional numbers: Central America is home to 653,796 migrants, the Caribbean hosts 613,432 migrants, Mexico has 1,103,460 migrants, and South America has 5,062,438 migrants. The U.S. meanwhile, hosts 45,785,090 migrants.

The subcommittee notes that the U.S. has about 4.5 percent of the world’s population but plays host to 20 percent of the globe’s migrants.

“As a matter of comparison, Latin America contains nearly twice as much of the world’s population – more than 8.5 percent – but houses only about 3.35 percent 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 than one-twentieth,” the subcommittee explains.

The subcommittee’s analysis comes as the Obama administration pursues an effort to resettle at least 10,000 Syrian refugees next year, over the national security and fiscal concerns voiced by some Republicans.

According to the analysis, about one in 40 migrants in the U.S. are from the Middle East or North Africa, and annually more than one in ten permanent migrants in the U.S. are Muslim.

“By contrast, only about 1 in 300 of all migrants living in Mexico today are from the Middle East or North Africa.  (About 1 in 7 migrants in Mexico hail from other Latin American countries, and about 7 in 10 migrants in Mexico are from Canada or the United States),” the subcommittee’s report reads.

The U.S. has also resettled more than 300 times more Middle Eastern migrants in the past decade as its southern neighbor, Mexico, the subcommittee notes.

“To provide further perspective: in 2010 there were 3,166 migrants from the Middle East living in Mexico; between 2001 and today, the United States has issued green cards to approximately 900,000 migrants from the Middle East and 1.5 million to migrants from Muslim countries,” it explains.

In the long view, the subcommittee highlights a 2011 Pew Research Center report arguing that the trend of the U.S. outpacing Latin America in Middle Eastern migration will continue.

Most of the projected growth in the region’s Muslim population will take place in North America, particularly in the U.S. and Canada. If current trends continue, the Muslim population in the United States is projected to more than double in the next 20 years, from 2.6 million in 2010 to 6.2 million in 2030…Of all the countries in the Americas, Canada and the U.S. are expected to have by far the largest percentage increases in the size of their Muslim populations, 183.1% and 139.5%, respectively…By 2030, the U.S. is projected to have a larger number of Muslims than any European country other than Russia (which is expected to have 19 million Muslims by 2030) and France (which is expected to have 6.9 million Muslims in 2030). By comparison, the United Kingdom and Germany are each projected to have nearly 5.6 million Muslims in 2030.