10 Countries that Have the Most Legal and Illegal Immigrants

What are the countries that have the most legal and illegal immigrants?

Unfortunately, we live in the world where many people don’t live in their place of birth, and the reasons for that are numerous. Sometimes people simply migrate because of their job, studies, and better opportunities in general, but on the other side, sometimes people are forcefully driven away from their homes, due to devastating occasions, such as wars, threats or any other political issues. On the contrary to those who are in the position to choose a country to migrate to, making the choice according to their needs, these migrants are not in the position to be choosy, but they simply go wherever the road takes them, together with the people of similar destiny. Generally speaking, some countries are more open when it comes to receiving migrants, while some other are not that interested, which is the reason I recommend you reading the list of Easiest Countries to Immigrate to.

According to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs report, the number of international migrants increased for 41% from the year 2000, going up to 244 million of people who left their homes. Europe is still the place where the biggest number of people moves to, around 76 million, while Asia is right after, with the number of 75 million migrants. Northern America has around 54 million migrants, while that number in Africa is 21 million, Latin America and the Caribbean 9 million and Oceania with 8 million of international migrants. The numbers are more than devastating, considering the fact that not all of these people decided to migrate because they wanted to, but because they were searching for better conditions, leaving their families behind them in most cases.

On the contrary to the number of legal immigrants within one country, it is really hard to find the relevant and specific data on the number of illegal immigrants, since it can never be 100% accurate. This is the biggest reason why I decided to organize my list in this manner; I ranked the countries according to the number of legal immigrants, additionally providing the number of illegal ones where applicable. I gave myself freedom to do so since the countries who count the biggest number of legal immigrants are in most cases the countries that also have a huge number of illegals. I could go and mix these two data, but I realized it would simply make bigger confusion and eventually nothing would be clear and relevant. The exact number of legal immigrants was provided by the 2015 report from the United Nations Populations Divisions on Foreign-Born population, while in order to deal with the number of illegal immigrants, I had to go through various websites, including official news portals from these countries and to read their reports and estimations.

So, let’s see what are the countries that have the most legal and illegal immigrants.

10. Italy

Italy is one of the countries that are very attractive to immigrants, both legal and illegal. While the first ones count 9.7% of the population, the number of the latter is much more complex. According to the American Interest, 2016 was probably the year in which the biggest number of illegal immigrants came from Africa to Italy, almost 15,000. In percentages, is the increase of 43%, compared to 2015 and 38% in comparison to 2014. Generally speaking, the biggest number of illegal immigrants comes to Italy from sub-Saharan Africa, more precisely, from countries such as Senegal, Gambia, and Nigeria.

9. Ukraine

I would never tell that Ukraine may be one of the ten popular countries when it comes to legal and illegal immigrants, but 10.8% of foreign-born residents who live in Ukraine show that this country definitely deserves the place on the list. Also, regarding the number of illegal immigrants, the situation is more or less the same as in the case of Italy, when it comes to direction from which they enter the country. Most of the illegal immigrants come to Ukraine from Africa, especially from Libya, and only the number of immigrants from this country increased up to 1,800 in 2013. Of course, Ukraine is never the last target, but rather the station where the immigrants stop on their way to some other European countries.

8. France

There is no need to explain why do people from around the world want to come and live in France, and this country is definitely the target country in most cases, not just a passing station. The percentage of foreign-born people who live in France is 12.1. On the other side, it has been estimated that the number of illegal immigrants in France goes from 200,000 to 400,000, which is enormous.  The biggest number of those illegal immigrants comes from sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Europe.

7. Spain

This attractive country is a home to 12.7% of legal immigrants and this should not be surprising at all. The reason why many people decide to come to Spain legally is the fact that it has a very convenient immigration law, which offers basically the same political and civil rights to all of the people who immigrate to Spain in a legal manner. On the other side, taking the same reasons into consideration and the fact that Spain is a great country regarding the employment, there are also many illegal immigrants coming from the north part of Africa. It has been estimated that their number was 12,549 in 2014.

6. United Kingdom

This country is also very popular when it comes to immigrants, being the reason why it is on our list of countries that have the most legal and illegal immigrants. The reasons why the United Kingdom is very attractive to foreigners are very diverse, but among all, the incredible unemployment rate of 4.8% motivates the people to come and search for a job here. There is around 13.2% of legal immigrants, while the number of illegal ones is very hard to conclude. According to the Office for National Statistics, that number was 650,000 in 2016, including people from both; European and non-European countries.

5. United States

Honestly, I would expect this country to be the first on the list, but all in all, it is still highly ranked. The percentage of foreign-born people in the United States is 14.9, and the situation is also quite similar when it comes to illegal immigrants. According to the Pew Research Center, the number of illegal immigrants in this country was around 11.3 million in 2016, and that number is quite similar to the statistics provided in 2015 and 2009. The biggest number of those immigrants comes from Asia and Central America.

4. Germany

Germany is more or less an obvious choice when one needs to decide where to go in search for the better living conditions. It is why this country is highly ranked, with the percentage of foreign-born people around 14.9. On the other side, the number of illegal immigrants is also quite high, but Germany has certain rigid measures to prevent illegal immigration. The magazine Telegraph even brought the news that the German police arrested around 57,000 of them in 2014 and that the number increased by 75% in comparison to the year before.

3. Canada

Lately, Canada has become one of the favorite places for people who decide to move out from their countries, and from what we can see from the media, it is certainly one of the most immigrant-friendly countries nowadays. The statistics confirm this notion since there are 21.8% of the foreign-born people currently living there. Of course, this number stands for the registered people. Unfortunately, there is no recent information regarding the number of illegal immigrants, but the statistic from 2003 testifies that there were around 36,000 of them. Eventually, the Criminal Code of Canada does not consider illegal immigration as a crime, which is a good thing to know.

2. Australia

The 2015 data from the United Nations Population Division on foreign-born populations provided the statistics for Australia that says that 28.2% of people living there are actually born outside of this country. This speaks enough abou how Australia is a very convenient country for a living, considering the fact that more than a quarter of registered people are actually legal immigrants. However, the information from 2014 provided the number of illegal immigrants, where it has been said that there are around 62,100 of people who live without documents on the territory of Australia. This country also has a lot of those who are considered to be “visa-over-stayers” and they are automatically marked as illegal immigrants.

1. Saudi Arabia

We came to the country which definitely has the biggest number of legal immigrants, or in other words 32.3% of their entire population. Why Saudi Arabia? Apparently, this country is the most popular for workers from Pakistan and India, but also some other countries such as Egypt, Yemen, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and many others.  There is a long history of accepting foreign workers because of the simple fact, known as cheap labor. On the other side, there are also many illegal immigrants who come to Saudi Arabia mostly because of work, and it has been estimated that only the number of Pakistani unregistered workers reached 40,000. The fact that there are many other people who seek refuge in Saudi Arabia, especially coming from Muslim countries, brought it to the first place of the list of the countries that have the most legal and illegal immigrants.