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Global Security and Sustainability
Global Migration and Human Mobility
While migration is an age-old phenomenon, its current scale and particular characteristics make it an issue of rising global concern at the outset of the 21st century. Immigration into the United States and Western Europe is part of a global system of population movement. Worldwide, some 200 million people are now living outside their country of origin. Today’s migrants use contemporary transportation and communication technologies to maintain strong home country ties; these same technologies encourage the back-and-forth movements of “circular migration.” Migration is spurred by economic opportunity, political turmoil, family reunification, war, and environmental crisis. Flows of migrants have profound economic, security, social, and cultural effects in countries of origin, transit, and destination. While globalization has led to lowered barriers to the international movement of goods and capital, the movement of people is still officially subject to tight controls.
Read more about global migration in the Fall 2008 MacArthur Newsletter 
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