The latest human mobility statistics demand attention. In 2024, the UN Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs estimated that there were 304 million international migrants worldwide—a number that has most likely grown significantly in this post-pandemic world. If migration wasn’t already a hot topic, its salience today is undeniable. It dominates political discourse, fuels electoral outcomes, and often triggers reactionary policymaking rather than proactive governance.
The numbers alone should lead us to two key questions: Why are people crossing borders more today than ever before? And, are the current mechanisms of migration management fit-for-purpose to meet modern-day trends?
In a recent [_New York Times_ opinion piece](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/31/opinion/trump-migration-world.html), journalist Lydia Polgreen examines this phenomenon as something both inevitable and extraordinary. She argues that “the figure of the migrant is deeply misunderstood” and that human movement has always been “inextricably tied with human progress.” But in contrast to historical trends, migration today is met with increasing hostility, belying the economic and social abundance it has historically yielded.
Amy Pope, [writing in _Foreign Affairs_](https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/migration-can-work-all-amy-pope), sheds light on why this potential for “human progress” through mobility is being stifled. She points to a structural failing in global migration governance: the widening gap between labor visa availability and the unintended misuse of the asylum system. The inability to provide regulated pathways for migration has led to an overburdened refugee system, further fueling populist backlash. Instead of creating durable solutions, governments are retreating behind restrictive policies—policies that only escalate disorder and human suffering.
We are at a tipping point. The world urgently needs a comprehensive, modernized framework that reframes international protection beyond the outdated binary approach of the 1951 Refugee Convention, while also establishing a robust system to manage an increasingly globalized workforce. Without such a mechanism, we risk a future where states begin to indiscriminately close their borders. Unfortunately, this is already happening, as the newly transitioned administration in the United States prioritizes deterrence above all else, prompting similar restrictive policies in European countries like Hungary and Poland.
But what if a governance model already existed? One that calculated how to harness the thriving potential of human mobility, as Polgreen envisions, while simultaneously addressing the real policy gaps that Pope identifies?