On December 18, International Migrants Day, we recognize the rights, contributions, and struggles of migrants, and reiterate the United States' commitment to support safe, orderly, and humane migration around the world. Through regional partnerships created by the Department of State's Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration with international humanitarian partners like the International Organization for Migration (IOM), as well as close coordination with governments throughout the world, we are working to enhance cooperation and migration management, to protect migrants in situations of vulnerability, and to address the root causes of irregular migration.
In its World Migration Report 2022, the IOM estimates that there were almost 281 million international migrants in 2020, which equates to 3.6 percent of the total global population. The United States underscores the need to discourage irregular migration, which exposes migrants to dangerous smuggling operations and trafficking in persons. At the same time, we encourage governments to improve access to international protection screening, strengthen their asylum capacity, identify and assist victims of trafficking in persons, support returning migrants' reintegration, and expand alternative legal pathways. Many migrants have faced tremendous hardships or lost their lives in dangerous irregular journeys across the Mediterranean, the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea, the Red Sea, the Darien Gap, and desert conditions near our own southwest border. Instability, economic hardship, and climate change are all factors that can push people into taking these dangerous journeys.
