Foreign aid cuts crippling humanitarian efforts, Donald Trump’s war on immigrants, the global refugee protection system coming under attack and a race to attract skilled migrants were among the top ten migration issues of the past 12 months, according to the global think tank, The Migration Policy Institute (MPI).

The MPI has identified the top ten migration issues of 2025 in a report that says international migration over the year was shaped by a series of converging pressures, as “governments in many high-income countries struggled to reconcile international protection obligations and labour and skills needs with public anxieties about immigration and border control”.

The report says that rising levels of conflict globally meant that many countries were unsettled on how and to whom to provide asylum.

But work, economic opportunity, and family reunification remained the chief reasons that people migrate.

And among good news was that the number of forcibly displaced individuals declined for the first time in years, the landscape for certain workers diversified, and some regional blocs continued their marches towards greater integration, the report said.

Among the top ten issues were:

Foreign Aid Cuts Cripple Humanitarian Efforts and Raise Prospect of New Displacement

“Governments across high-income countries slashed tens of billions of dollars in foreign aid and development support in 2025, in what the United Nations described as the sharpest funding cuts to international humanitarian efforts in history. The reductions had immediate and potentially irreversible impacts on humanitarian and migration organisations and the people they serve worldwide,” the MPI report said.

“By midyear, humanitarian aid globally was down 40 per cent from the prior year, leading to steep downsizing. While cuts affected all manner of humanitarian projects, billions of dollars targeted migration-related issues.

“For refugees and other forcibly displaced people, the cuts resulted in reduced food, closed health facilities, and greater exposure to natural disasters, among other impacts. To take just one example, at the world’s largest refugee settlement, in Myanmar, most schools were temporarily shuttered midyear cases of children with acute malnutrition rose by 11 per cent from January to September, and reports of child marriage and child labour rose”.

US Relationship with Immigration and Immigrants Altered under Trump

“President Donald Trump returned to office in January intent on profoundly altering the United States’ relationship with immigration and quickly got to work retooling US policy and seeking to reshape public attitudes towards immigrants and immigration,” the MPI report said.

“Within hours of his swearing-in, Trump began pursuing an historic number of deportations, reshaping the legal immigration system to be significantly more exclusive, reducing services to resident immigrants and their US-born children, and reconfiguring how the United States – long home to more immigrants than any other country—considers the foreign born as part of its collective identity.

“Most visible by far was the campaign for mass deportations. The administration pledged to remove one million unauthorized immigrants per year (although the total in 2025 will likely be closer to 600,000, and it corralled virtually every arm of the sprawling US federal government to assist.” 

Refugee Norms Erode as the Protection System Faces New Stresses

“Long-agreed norms against pushing people back to places where they might be subject to harm underwent further backsliding in 2025. The prohibition on returning refugees and other people to precarious situations is decades old but nonetheless seemed to be skirted or outright ignored in some cases this year; elsewhere, governments made express calls to rewrite international human-rights frameworks,” the report said.

“No place was this clearer than in the return this year of more than 2.7 million Afghans to their Taliban-controlled homeland, where residents face harsh restrictions on daily life and roughly half the country is confronting some sort of economic or environmental crisis. UN officials have repeatedly warned that returnees face serious human rights threats, including the possibility of torture.”

As Labor Demands Rise amid Demographic Change, Under-the-Radar Policies Seek to Fill Gaps

“While the story of migration in 2025 was generally speaking one of tightened borders and stricter enforcement, several under-the-radar trends showcased how countries with aging populations and shrinking birthrates are seeking to fill labour market and skills gaps, particularly in high-skill sectors,” the report said.

“Governments rolled out new visas for these workers, in some cases keying off policy changes in other countries to make themselves more competitive. Even as it tightened restrictions on some types of immigration, the United Kingdom planned to double the number of high-skilled visas for foreign workers.

“China meanwhile unveiled a new K visa targeting young high-tech workers and researchers who meet certain criteria, in what was seen as a response to US hardening of its policies for high-skilled immigrants.”

Big Brother Hits the World of Immigration Full Force

“Authorities worldwide in 2025 increasingly relied on advanced technologies to surveil, police, and process newly arriving migrants and settled immigrants. In some cases, technology is being used to identify, arrest, and remove noncitizens; in others, the systems are touted as ways to make travel more efficient, frictionless, and safer,” the report said.

Countries in Latin America and Beyond Adjust to US Mass Deportations Campaign

“The fallout from the rapid-fire immigration policy changes in the United States was global and often unpredictable. Cooperation on deportation became a precondition for diplomatic engagement with Washington, and multiple countries were left reeling with the consequences of deportations and a stiffer US border,” the report said.

“Patterns of movement through the Americas were particularly shaken up. Crossings of the treacherous Darien Gap between Colombia and Panama plummeted precipitously, down from more than 520,000 in 2023 to fewer than 3,000 in the first nine months of 2025. Multiple months saw fewer than a dozen travellers making the trek northward through the jungle. Meanwhile, more than 18,000 migrants – the vast majority of them Venezuelan – had passed through Panama southbound as of September, in a reverse flow.”

Amid a Global Restrictionist Turn, Irregular Migration Drops—But Will It Last?

“Border restrictions, including on asylum seeking, appeared to have their desired effect in some countries in 2025, as irregular migration rates declined. The trend, which was not universal, may support the claim that transit and destination countries can deter spontaneous arrivals of asylum seekers and others – but it could also point to deferred migration aims or different patterns of movement, if migrants turn to alternate destinations or simply delay their journey for a period,” the report said.

The Beginning of the End of Syria’s Long-Running Displacement?

“A glimmer of hope emerged in Syria after 14 years of civil war that had spawned perhaps the defining displacement crisis of the 21st century so far, with as many as seven million Syrians forced from their country and a similar number displaced within it. The late 2024 overthrow of dictator Bashar al-Assad led to cautious optimism from the international community and prompted millions of Syrians to return to their homes,” the report said.

“By early December, nearly 1.3 million Syrians abroad and another two million internally displaced people had returned to their places of origin. Nearly a fifth of Syrian refugees said in June that they planned to return over the next year, and four-fifths planned to go back eventually.”

With Armed Conflict on the Rise, Crises Endure

“Emerging from what was described as the most conflict-heavy year on record, the world in 2025 was beset by protracted crises resulting in mass displacement. More state-based armed conflicts were recorded in 2024 than ever before; while several peace agreements were struck in 2025 and overall displacement declined slightly, more than 117 million people were displaced at midyear (both internationally and within their own countries), the second highest number on record,” the report said.

A Mixed Record for Regional Cooperation on Migration Management

“Regional free-movement blocs in Europe and West Africa experienced some struggles in 2025, even as a new regime came into effect in the Caribbean that allows more people to live and work freely across borders. While the practicalities of regional cooperation resulted in mixed results during the year, the concept continues to have broad appeal,” the report said.

“Forty years after coming into being, Europe’s free-movement zone faced intense pressure. Leaders from nearly a dozen European nations imposed some form of internal border controls. Several cited national security, or the prospect of heightened irregular migration, and reflected the embrace by some on the continent of far-right political concerns. Germany, which has been at the forefront of stiffening borders within the 29-member Schengen Zone, introduced new rules in May and had turned away nearly 18,600 by November.”

Read more here: Article: Top 10 Migration Issues of 2025 | migrationpolicy.org