Today let's start with a quiz. First I want you to think about the current global population.

Everyone who is alive today. That's roughly 8 billion people in just

under 200 countries. Of all those people in all those countries, what percent do you think

live in a country other than the country where they were born?

Yes, this is a question about migration and immigration, and I know that immigration is a subject that has many people flipping out,

but I don't want you to flip out at least not yet

you will have opportunities later on so that's the question what percentage of the global

population today are migrants.

All right, you have your answer?

Did you say 30%?

You say 20%, 10?

Here's the actual answer.

3.6%. If that number seems shockingly low to you as it did to me,

when I first saw this number, there is a good chance that you are an American because nearly 14% of the American population was born elsewhere.

Think about that. Someone living in the US is nearly four times more likely than the global average to have left their home country.

There are a few countries with an even higher percentage of immigrants,

Canada, Germany, Australia, Saudi Arabia, but in terms of absolute numbers, the US is

destination number one by a long shop. Roughly 50 million people living in the US were born elsewhere.

It was John F Kennedy who began calling the US a nation of immigrants.

But what does that actually mean?

What are the consequences, the costs and benefits

of being the ocean that so many rivers compete to flow into?

...