This paper discusses broad trends in the rates and levels of international migration over the past three decades, the places that migrants leave from and the destinations they choose; and some of the demographic and policy implications of these trends. It raises some features of international mobility trends over the past three decades that are, superficially, somewhat contradictory: stable rates of emigration but growing numbers of emigrants; and an apparent dynamism in the flow but a stable concentration of migrants going to more developed nations. On the one hand, these facts can be somewhat simply resolved by reference to the demographic divide between the less and more developed world. On the other hand, these facts hold implications for the past and future impacts of admission policies on international mobility.