Global Migration in 2025: A Background Assessment
The year 2025 marked a period in which human mobility was redefined both quantitatively and qualitatively. While many of the trends from the previous year (2024) continued, new policies, demographic shifts, and the strategic orientations of geopolitical actors reshaped migration at both global and regional levels. Once again, 2025 confirmed that migration is not merely a cross-border population movement, but a phenomenon situated at the center of economic, political, and social transformations.
Global Migrant Stock: Not Just a Number, but Human Movement
As of 2025, approximately 304 million people live outside their country of birth (international migrants). This indicates that the global migrant stock has nearly doubled, from roughly 154 million in 1990. Migration has become a structural phenomenon, and women constitute approximately 48% of the migrant population, demonstrating that female migration is no longer a marginal process (United Nations).
Representing roughly 4% of the world’s population, and exceeding the population of many countries, the global migrant stock moves for diverse reasons: work, education, family reunification, and the search for safety. This requires us to read migration not only through economic preferences, but also as an outcome of socio-political vulnerabilities.
Forced Displacement and the Refugee Reality
In 2025, forced displacement stood out as critical in both scope and complexity. Globally, 117.3 million people have been forcibly displaced. These are human movements directly driven by war, violence, persecution, and human rights violations. Of these, 30.5 million are under UNHCR’s mandate as refugees or in refugee-like situations, while the number of internally displaced persons has reached 68.7 million. In addition, 6.9 million people returned to their countries, whereas the number of refugees resettled was recorded at only 28,600.
These figures are not merely statistics; they are the sum of lived experiences of people confronting systematic deprivation, violence, and insecurity. Displacement often does not cross international borders; people are frequently forced to move within their own countries. This shows that roughly two-thirds of global forced displacement stems from internal displacement (ReliefWeb).
Africa: Displacement and Structural Hardships
In Africa, displacement has become a defining phenomenon. Available data indicate that the majority of displaced people in Africa remain within their countries and face protracted humanitarian crises, placing pressure on both economic and social sustainability (African Development Bank).
Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) stand out as contexts where high numbers of both internal and cross-border displacement are observed. In the DRC, millions are internally displaced, and children constitute a large share of this population (UN News). As of 2025, Uganda hosts approximately 1.95 million refugees, placing it among the world’s largest refugee-hosting countries.
Middle East: Syria and the Real Face of Return
In the Syrian context, 2025 was a year in which post-war return dynamics became more tangible. According to IOM data, approximately 782,000 Syrians returned to their country between December 2024 and December 2025.
Although most of these returns were voluntary, many returnees still face infrastructure deficits, limited access to basic services, and economic fragility. This indicates that return does not necessarily mean “normalisation,” but instead forms part of a broader re-settlement process.
Therefore, the Syrian case demonstrates that narratives claiming “the war is over” are insufficient on their own, and that return and reintegration processes require long-term strategies.
Remittance Flows: The Migration–Development Nexus
The economic impact of migration can be read more concretely through remittances (migrant money transfers). In 2024, migrants sent approximately USD 905 billion in remittances globally, representing a substantial 4.6% increase compared to 2023. These transfers serve as a vital resource in low- and middle-income countries, especially across investment, food security, health, and education.
However, a critical point remains: remittances are not only an income stream, but also constitute a central mechanism in the migration–development relationship. A key question is whether these transfers are spent on daily necessities, on low-value-added expenditures such as housing/land, or on entrepreneurship-oriented allocations that enable long-term development.
Children, Women, and Vulnerable Groups: Beyond the Numbers
High proportions of children and women within migrant populations make the equality and social rights dimensions of migration more visible. Approximately 28 million international migrants are children. This is not simply a number; it raises substantial policy needs regarding the right to education, psychosocial support, and the rebuilding of family structures.
Women constitute roughly half of the global migrant population, reinforcing the necessity of analysing migration through a gender lens (United Nations).
Political Agenda: Where Migration Intersects with Policy
Migration now stands at the center of political agendas in many countries. While migration policies were already at the core of political debates in 2024, this trend deepened further in 2025.
2025 was a year in which migration not only moved to the center of political agendas, but in many cases political agendas overshadowed practical policy needs. I structure this assessment under four sub-headings: (1) the politicisation of migration; (2) securitisation and border regimes; (3) the contradiction between economic need and political rejection; (4) the erosion of humanitarian language.
1. Politicisation of Migration: Migration as a Political Instrument
In 2025, migration was used not primarily as a phenomenon of population movement, but as an instrument of political strategy and voter mobilisation. According to the OECD’s 2025 report, although 6.2 million new permanent migrants arrived in OECD countries in 2024, still a historically high level, this reality was often represented in political discourse primarily as a “problem that must be controlled.” Even though permanent migration declined by 4% after three years of increases, it remained 15% above 2019 levels (OECD).
Across Europe, anti-immigration rhetoric and policies continued to influence voter behaviour while generating new searches for balance in debates on irregular migration and border security. Dynamics at EU borders sustain ongoing tensions between migration governance and free movement regimes (European Commission).
In the United States, debates over migration policy hardened further in 2025; migration discourse was frequently framed through perceptions of security and economic threat, often highlighting migrants’ potential “burdens” rather than their ”contributions”. This contributed to defining migration primarily through national security and border control, leaving economic benefits and integration needs in the background. The tightening of migration policies and the linking of population policy to economic debates also led migration to be discussed not only through social integration but also through an economic-growth lens. In this context, migrants’ economic contributions remain contested (TUİÇ Akademi).
2. Securitisation and Border Regimes: Governance Through a Logic of Control
In 2025, the character of migration policies was primarily shaped by security-oriented language. The European Union framed migration not merely as a “problem,” but increasingly as a matter of border security and national defence. Tightened measures targeting irregular crossings from North Africa, such as Tunisia’s efforts to return approximately 10,000 irregular migrants through voluntary return programmes, became concrete indicators of this orientation (Reuters).
Similarly, although Europe recorded a 30% decline in irregular crossings in the first quarter of 2025, this decline drew severe criticism of the human rights costs of border security strategies. IOM data show that hundreds continue to lose their lives in the Mediterranean, indicating that security-centered approaches do not eliminate irregular migration but often push migrants toward more dangerous routes (The Guardian).
These strategies have evolved beyond traditional migration control to include return agreements, pressure on transit countries, and security-oriented foreign policy. The “one in, one out” plan implemented by the United Kingdom and France is one example, aiming to reposition migrants not only through physical borders but also through legal mechanisms.
3. The Contradiction Between Economic Need and Political Rejection
While economic arguments often accompany the politicisation of migration, it frequently contradicts actual policy practice. The OECD report confirms that despite the decline in permanent migration in 2024, the figure remained at 6.2 million, underscoring the importance of migration for labour markets and demographic needs (OECD).
Nevertheless, many countries prefer to code migrants as a burden on social services, a cultural integration challenge, or a security threat. This approach conflicts with migrants’ contributions to labour markets, potential solutions to demographic imbalances, and its impacts on economic growth. Even in labour migration, declines observed in Europe and OECD countries, particularly in skilled labour flows, highlight the misalignment between political approaches and structural needs.
This contradiction places migration simultaneously within two narratives: as an “economic necessity” and as a “politically rejected issue.” Political rhetoric can, in many cases, overshadow economic analysis.
4. The Erosion of Humanitarian Language: From Quantification to the Loss of Subjecthood
In 2025, the framing of migration policy shifted markedly toward a numerical and technical language. The primary focus was no longer personal tragedy, integration narratives, or migrant rights, but “control mechanisms,” “border security solutions,” and “statistical targets.” This shift transformed migrants from subjects into ”objects” to be managed.
The most visible consequence of this discursive shift is that migration is presented to the public not through the language of the “right to life” and “protection,” but through technical concepts such as “flows,” “irregular crossings,” “return rates,” and “management capacity.” Throughout 2025, official reporting in Europe increasingly relied on performance indicators such as “improving conditions / declining crossings,” suggesting a framework grounded in “measurable control” rather than human-centered protection. For instance, the European Commission’s 2025 annual report on migration management advanced a progress narrative through metrics such as declining irregular border crossings.
Yet behind this technical framing lies a far harsher reality. IOM’s Missing Migrants data show that 2024 was the deadliest year globally, with at least 8,938 deaths on migration routes; IOM also stresses that the real number may be higher due to unrecorded deaths (International Organization for Migration). This demonstrates clearly that a control-centered approach does not end migration, but often pushes migrants toward higher-risk routes.
The erosion of humanitarian language becomes even more striking when children are considered. UNICEF’s 2025 assessment reports that approximately 3,500 children died or went missing on the Central Mediterranean route over the past decade (UNICEF). These figures remind us that every time we speak in terms of “statistical targets” and “border procedures,” children’s lives become an invisible cost of migration regimes.
For this reason, the technicalisation of the “migration management” narrative in 2025 should be seen not only as a matter of language, but also as a redistribution of political responsibility. When what is measured is “declining crossings,” what cannot be easily measured, those lost on the route, unidentified deaths, fragmented families, children’s lost years, is pushed outside the policy debate. The most fundamental question of 2025 emerges here: will we define success in migration governance solely through control indicators, or will we bring human security and protection back to the center?
The Türkiye Context
In 2025, migration in Turkiye remained both a strategic issue and a central social policy priority. Turkiye’s hosting capacity remains a defining reality at the global level. According to UNHCR Turkiye, the country hosts approximately 3.2 million registered Syrians, in addition to approximately 222,000 non-Syrians classified as “persons of concern / under protection” (UNHCR).
This picture gained a new dimension in 2025 with the socio-institutional transformation process in Syria, and returns accelerated visibly. UNHCR’s operational update records that in the post–8 December 2024 period, as of 14 March 2025, approximately 354,900 Syrians had returned to Syria via Turkey (UNHCR estimate) (UNHCR). Later, UNHCR Turkey’s September 2025 information note reports that, due to developments in Syria, approximately 474,000 refugees voluntarily returned from Turkey to Syria by early September 2025 (ReliefWeb). This indicates that “return” has moved from an abstract policy goal to a measurable behaviour. At the same time, the same data remind us that return does not necessarily mean “normalisation”; returnees continue to face vulnerabilities in housing, infrastructure, security, livelihoods, and access to services.
Afghan migration also carried distinct weight in Turkey’s migration agenda in 2025. Here, two-layered realities stand out: first, the prominent share of Afghans within international protection applications; second, the dynamics of irregular migration and border crossings. The AIDA (ECRE) country report update suggests that, despite debates over access and registration constraints in 2024, Afghans constitute the largest group among applicants (ECRE). On irregular migration, the Prague Process country profile, drawing on official compiled data, states that in 2024, Turkey apprehended 225,831 irregular migrants, among whom Afghan nationals ranked first with 33,099 (Prague Process). ICMPD’s Migration Outlook 2025 also highlights Afghan-origin irregular mobility amid a period when Turkey’s border control has tightened (icmpd.org). Taken together, these figures show that Afghan migration in Turkey cannot be reduced to a single label such as “transit” or “asylum”; it is shaped through mixed statuses, risks of irregularisation, and administrative governance.
In 2025, Turkey’s migration governance progressed under the influence of both the need to manage returns and registration practices domestically and the financial and institutional cooperation framework established with the EU. The European Commission states that since 2011, approximately €10 billion has been mobilised to support refugees and host communities in Turkiye; under FRIT (Facility for Refugees in Turkey), a total of €6 billion was designed, and a significant portion has been disbursed (Enlargement and Eastern Neighbourhood). In this framework, migration remains not only a domestic policy issue for Turkey but also a structural area for negotiation in Turkey–EU relations.
Finally, a critical dimension of 2025 at the level of regulation and implementation is the increasing shift of the migration regime into a more administrative/technical frame. Practices such as determining provinces of residence for Syrians under temporary protection (for example, restrictions in certain provinces) are regulated through the Directorate General of Migration Management’s legislation and announcements (en.goc.gov.tr). The AIDA report further notes that in practice, difficulties in registration processes, status cancellations, and access barriers affect access to protection (ECRE). For this reason, the Turkish context in 2025 should be analysed not only through the question “how many people are there?”, but through questions of which legal status, which rights, which administrative constraints, and which return dynamics shape people’s lives.
General Assessment
In 2025, migration was redefined not merely as a population flow or a temporary crisis headline, but as a multi-layered field of transformation extending from policymaking to economic planning, from human rights to international cooperation. Rising displacement, continuing irregular mobility, accelerating returns in a limited but meaningful way, and the politicised language of migration together show clearly that migration is no longer a peripheral issue but one of the central variables of the global order.
In this context, 2025 demonstrated that migration policy cannot be confined to technical management tools alone; approaches caught between security, economic pressures, and public opinion do not produce sustainable outcomes on their own. Migration remains both a structural necessity in labour markets and demographic balances, and a continuing test for human rights and protection regimes. This dual reality reveals that simple categories dividing migration into “desired” and “undesired” are no longer explanatory.
Thus, the core lesson of 2025 is this: migration policies should be rethought not through short-term political gains or security reflexes focused solely on border control, but based on human security, social cohesion, and international responsibility-sharing. Without holistic approaches that go beyond figures and indicators, place migrants back at the center as subjects, and cover the entire process from return to integration, it is difficult to manage the structural challenges produced by migration in a lasting manner.
As we approach 2026, my hope is that migration debates will be handled with greater humanitarian sensitivity, greater political consistency, and stronger international cooperation. A perspective that recognises migration not through a crisis discourse but as a global reality, and that produces balanced and sustainable solutions instead of a zero-sum relationship between security, economy, and human rights, promises a fairer and more stable future not only for migrants, but also for host societies and the international system as a whole.
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