Original discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5133098
The rankings for migrant destinations are:
USA 42,788,029
RUSSIAN FED. 12,270,388
GERMANY 10,758,061
SAUDI ARABIA 7,288,900
CANADA 7,202,340
UNITED KINGDOM 6,955,738
SPAIN 6,900,547
FRANCE 6,684,842
AUSTRALIA 5,522,408
INDIA 5,436,012
Data is sourced from the World Bank
From that article:
Top emigration countries
MEXICO 11,859,236
INDIA 11,360,823
RUSSIAN FED. 11,034,681
CHINA 8,344,726
UKRAINE 6,525,145
BANGLADESH 5,384,875
PAKISTAN 4,678,730
So, yes, I was speaking of NET immigration, for which the United States still seems easily to be the top-ranked country. The point in another reply is correct that laws about immigration limit freedom of movement to some extent, but that is also revelatory about what people desire. The United States doesn't have to do anything to keep people already here in, but its government has been called on by some domestic voters to make it hard for just anyone to come in from outside.
But over the past five years, in every single year, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, there have been more people moving from the USA to Mexico than the reverse. And Russia is high up on both lists; that demands some kind of explanation, too.
You're going to need a lot more detailed information about what is really motivating migration before you can use numbers like that to measure the desirability of any nation for residence or citizenship.
Russians don't consider most Ukrainians/Belarussians immigrants (I assume americans would not consider canadians who just happened to work in the USA immigrants as well)
But peoplemov.in statistics wildly understate the number of immigrants from Central Asia who often aren't properly accounted for or just live here illegaly because of porous borders.