Are the United States an aspirational destination? Do millions of people aspire to become US citizens?
Yes and yes.
But the reason is usually because they’re more dissatisfied with where they are, than they are interested in coming to the US.
According to this research, a tiny minority of people world-wide actually want to move here. How many is a “tiny minority?” One hundred, forty-seven million.
A lot of those people are coming from really dreadful places.
Considering there are over seven billion people worldwide, 147 million people is decidedly not a lot of people. Compared to the US population (roughly 350 million), that number is a lot.
In other words, the number of people wanting to come to America is relative.
Researchers found that roughly 15 percent of the global population said they would move to another country if given the chance. That’s roughly 710 million people. The 147 million figure is a subset of that population. Meanwhile, 85 percent of the global population is fine right where they’re at.
Those who do want to move to the US, overwhelmingly want to come here as opposed to some other country. No arguing that. This blogger makes a great point about people wanting to move here, but we think he goes a bit far claiming that the fact that they do indicates an objectively valid measure of an American exceptionalism.
People’s desire to move here is based on their own desires and perspectives as well as their current situation at home. As such, these desires are always subjective and more about where they’re coming from than where they want to go.
Most people are happy right where they’re at. And for good reason. Family, friends, comfort of home, familiarity, identification with the land….These are good reasons for staying put.
And that’s why we’re eager to make people around the world aware of our innovation. For it can create prosperity exceeding that of the US in every part of the world (including the US), without taking any wealth from any person anywhere or requiring anyone to leave their homelands.
There are a lot of things the United States offers, making it a popular destination for those unsatisfied with where they are. Perhaps the solution to immigration is not building a wall, but creating opportunities where people are that rival or exceed what’s possible somewhere else.
Hard to do with our current system. Easy to do with ours.