President Trump's administration has made repeated claims that its proposed immigration bans are meant to stop the flow of refugees across US borders.
But what does that flow actually look like compared to the rest of the world?
Global security expert and research director at the think tank Igarapé Institute Robert Muggah knows. Earth TimeLapse, an interactive platform created by Muggah and Carnegie Mellon University, details over a 16-year span from 2000 to 2015 where migrants are leaving and arriving.
Data comes from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Each red dot represents 17 refugees arriving in a country, while yellow dots represent refugees leaving their home country behind.
The resulting maps are nothing short of mesmerizing.
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2001 saw roughly 500,000 refugees fleeing primarily Middle-Eastern countries, such as Afghanistan and Macedonia, and African countries, such as Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Source: UNHCR
By 2002, both the number of newly displaced refugees and total refugees had fallen (since 2001). Still, large numbers of people fled war-torn African countries for safer, neighboring nations or havens in Europe.
Due to the War in Darfur, 2003 primarily saw an outflow of refugees from Sudan to nearby Chad. The UNHCR estimates roughly 100,000 new refugees came from Sudan alone.
Source: UNHCR
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