Migration is universal, and it is nothing unique to humans. It’s the seasonal movement of animals from one region to another. It’s the movement of cells inside an organism. And for as far back as we can trace our own history, migration has also been a part of the human condition. Migration as we know it today is the result of a socially constructed binary — legal and illegal. These labels fundamentally organize how we all experience daily life. Who has the right to access space? And, who has the right to move within it?

Like Najia, many of us have been raised to believe that good begets good. We believe that hard work, good grades, and high test scores will lead to greater educational opportunities — that exceptional work is rewarded. If you were born in the United States, you may have seen the benefits that can be reaped through hard work — through self-discipline, determination, or perseverance. But what if you were born in a country that offered you no chance to pursue a higher education, despite your exceptional performance in school? What if you had seen that no matter how hard you worked, you could never promise your family would have enough food on the table at the end of the week?

What if the only chance you had for greater educational or economic opportunity lay beyond the borders of your own country?

The sad truth is that those who have little reason to leave their birth countries are among the very few born with the freedom to relocate. Those whose only opportunities for a stable future lie beyond the borders of their homeland often discover that they are trapped.

I was born in the United States to parents who were both full citizens at the time of my birth and was therefore granted certain rights — the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, including the right to move with little restriction to 100 percent of the 162 nations that were independently recognized in the year that I was born. I am statistically one of the least likely to move in search of economic opportunities, and yet I am among the small population of global citizens for whom the world’s borders are open.

I first met Najia when I was exercising this very right — living and working far from my country of birth, in North Africa. Ceuta and Melilla, the two colonial-era Spanish enclaves that bring an internally borderless European Union within the confines of the Moroccan state, are among the primary crossing points for all African refugees and migrants like Najia. From there, they attempt to scale the ring of razor-wired fences or paddle small boats across the Strait of Gibraltar to mainland Spain. Yet fewer and fewer are successful in these attempts, as Europe bolsters the security controls at its southern borders, and pays Morocco to amend its own immigration policies. Like Najia, the majority of those who attempt to escape now find themselves trapped once again — this time under brutal conditions in a cycle of failed crossings and repeated deportations in Morocco.

Born to Nigerian parents in 1988, Najia did not have the right to move beyond the African continent, with the exception of four small island nations. According to statistics published by her foreign ministry, less than 10 percent of the world’s borders were open to her. Those that were accessible represented a selection of some of the poorest economies in the world. Even then, Najia’s travel visas would be limited to terms of three to 90 days, and applying for them would often require showing upwards of $20,000 in her personal bank account.

In a country that continues to suffer from a history of colonial exploitation, political instability, and economic depression, Najia dreamed of little but escape. Yet she had almost no legal options to leave.

“I knew my parents would worry for me. Even before my brother was killed, we’d heard stories about all the dangers found on the journey north — the theft, the beatings, the rape — so I didn’t tell them when I was leaving. I was scared. At first, I thought about turning back almost every day. But the longer you travel, the harder it is to turn back, and at some point you realize that you’re going to keep going until you make it all the way. How do you go back empty handed to a family who still struggles to eat?”

I had heard similar stories from others who traveled from central and western African countries and crossed the Sahara Desert to reach the final border to Europe. More than 80 percent of the migrant population trapped in Morocco is under the age of 30 — more than a quarter of those are under the age of 18 — and nearly all have made the journey to Europe’s southern border on their own. “You can’t go back home until you’re a big man,” says Adeline, a delicate boy no more than 16 who wears an oversized Nike sweatshirt and shoes that don’t match. “We’ll make it to Europe, or we’ll die trying.”

The makeshift camps that are now overflowing with men, women, and children just south of Spain’s border reflect critical shifts in migration that are unfolding on a global scale. In Najia’s lifetime and in mine, the countries that have long promised the possibility of a second chance to migrants and refugees — countries like the United States, and those across the European Union — have reached new saturation points and begun pushing their border controls further and further south. Morocco is among the first to be impacted by this European-sanctioned practice of “push-backs.” Yet countries like Mexico, situated just south of “The American Dream,” will be similarly impacted in the coming years by strengthened borders, increased deportations, and new populations of migrants and refugees-in-waiting.

With populism on the rise across continents, and a new US president exalting an “America-first” policy rooted in reinforcing border controls and refusing asylum to all displaced populations, it becomes critical for us to re-examine our basic rights to mobility. As is reflected in the map below, a person’s country of birth determines the borders that are opened or closed to them, and the possible futures that they can imagine.

Map of Global Im/mobility

Click on a country to see where someone born there is reasonably free to move. You’ll notice that those born in countries with a low GDP have less freedom to move about the planet than those born in countries with a high GDP. (Shirley Wu)

This interactive map of global im/mobility was built using data from the foreign ministries of the 196 independent nations recognized in the world today. The first of its kind, it allows you to view the borders that are opened to or closed to travelers based solely on their country of birth and the current visa requirements.

A couple of important points to highlight:

1. This map does not indicate the ability for one to migrate to another country, but simply the ability for one to visit another country (for up to 30 days). The requirements become increasingly strict and the mobility options increasingly limited the longer one seeks to stay abroad.

2. This map assumes that individuals seeking to travel have a valid passport and no criminal record.

3. The borders that are marked as “open” have one of two possible visa restrictions — either no visa requirement limiting mobility between the two countries or a “visa on arrival” requirement, which is denied only if an individual is unable to pay a visa fee (ranging from $100-$500) and not due to their country of birth.

4. Timatic, the database that most major airlines rely on for cross border documentation requirements, reports that they are now updating their database as often as 150 times a day, so the data informing this graphic is subject to change.