NPR

Report: Facts About Migrants Don't Always Match What The Headlines Say

'The Lancet' looks at everything from the potential spread of infectious diseases to the impact on the economy of the country where migrants and refugees have arrived.
A migrant receives medical attention at a former paper factory in Greece that has been turned into a makeshift camp.

A new report by a commission empaneled by University College London and the Lancet medical journal offers a thorough — and often surprising — look at the medical and economic impacts of immigration.

Twenty public health researchers from 13 countries worked on the project for two years, reviewing nearly 300 studies, primarily from this decade but going back as far as 1994. Populist leaders, they say, have painted a picture of migration today as primarily hordes of destitute people flooding into rich countries, carrying diseases and sucking up resources. The truth, they say, is far different.

According to the International Organization for Migration, the U.N.'s

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