A plaque on the Statue of Liberty features Emma Lazarus'swordsurging the world to "give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." In hisfarewell address, then-President Ronald Reagan referred to the United States as a "shining city upon a hill" and added that in his vision, "if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here." But despite its continuing success, the U.S. is becoming a less attractive destination for people around the world. Currently-ascendant nativists want to close America's doors and turn away the huddled masses, and the message is being received loud and clear.

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According to Galluppolling published last week, "15% of adults worldwide who say they would like to move permanently to another country name the U.S. as their preferred destination." That's down from24 percentfrom 2007–2009 and 20 percent in 2016. "Since 2017, it has been at or below 18%."

That still puts the U.S. as the top choice on a list of options including Canada (9 percent), Germany (5 percent), Australia, Spain, France, the U.K., Japan (all 4 percent), Italy, and Saudi Arabia (3 percent). For people around the world interested in permanently leaving their home countries, the U.S. steadily declined over the last two decades as a preferred destination while the other countries named largely remained steady.

What has changed, as Gallup, notes, is that the past year "coincides with a sharp slowdown in international migration into the U.S., amid changes in immigration policy and declining migration desire in several regions."

That is, in both his first and second stints in the White House, President Donald Trump has emphasized border enforcement and immigration restrictions—at least initially, with public support. The interregnum single-term Biden administration took a very different hands-off approach to migration and alienated voters as a result. "As public concern over border security grew, partly in response to Mr. Biden's own actions, his administration proved catastrophically slow to change course," Christopher FlavellesummarizedforThe New York Timesafter the 2024 election returned Trump to power.

The reinstalled president took his predecessor's failures as a reason todouble down on border enforcement. That wasn't necessarily the right lesson to take from the election. High-profile and oftenbrutalmethods horrified many people who thought they were getting an administration that took the border seriously—not one that sent federal agents marching through city streets.

By December of last year, Pew Research found inpolling about administration policiesthat "53% of Americans say it is doing 'too much' when it comes to deporting immigrants who are living in the United States illegally." That was up from 44 percent the previous March. The White House thenshifted directionon immigration enforcement to emphasize arrests of migrants with criminal records.

But images of immigration and Border Patrol agents rounding up immigrants were broadcast and seen around the world. Those reports appeared while "global desire to migrate declined in 2025 to its lowest level in a decade," as reported by Gallup. Fewer people around the world want to move, and even fewer favor risking a potentially perilous transfer to the U.S.

What's ironic—and troubling for the prospects of improving human prosperity—is that the U.S. remains a destination with better prospects than most other nations for building wealth.

Source: Drudge Report