 German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrives to attend a UN Migration Conference in Marrakech, Morocco, Monday, Dec.10, 2018. Top U.N. officials and government leaders from about 150 countries are uniting... (Associated Press) 
 
 German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrives to attend a UN Migration Conference in Marrakech, Morocco, Monday, Dec.10, 2018. Top U.N. officials and government leaders from about 150 countries are uniting around an agreement on migration, while finding themselves on the defensive about the non-binding deal... (Associated Press) 
 
 MARRAKECH, Morocco (AP) — Defying fierce opposition from the United States and a few other nations, nearly 85 percent of the countries at the U.N. agreed Monday on a sweeping yet non-binding accord to ensure safe, orderly and humane migration. Defenders say migration greases the wheels of the world economy by diversifying and rejuvenating workforce in aging rich countries and providing a needed source of cash to poorer countries through remittances sent home by migrants. Since then, right-wing and anti-immigration movements have enjoyed a surge in political support in pockets of Europe.
– Defying fierce opposition from the United States and a few other nations, nearly 85% of the countries at the UN agreed Monday on a sweeping yet non-binding accord to ensure safe, orderly, and humane migration. A total of 164 countries among the 193 UN members approved the first-of-its-kind the Global Compact for Migration by acclamation Monday, reports the AP. At the two-day conference, UN leaders were hoping to lure in holdouts from mostly Western nations who were not signing: Australia, Austria, the Czech Republic, the Dominican Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, and Slovakia along with the United States, which under President Trump did not participate in drafting the accord. The UN's International Organization for Migration estimates there are 1 billion migrants worldwide, or nearly one in every seven humans," and more than 60,000 migrants have died on the move since the year 2000," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told a migration conference in Marrakesh, Morocco. "This is a source of collective shame." The conference is the capstone of efforts set in motion two years ago when all 193 UN member states, including the US under President Barack Obama, adopted a declaration saying that no country can manage international migration on its own and agreed to work on a global compact. The Trump administration pulled out of the accord a year ago. It said it could not "support a 'compact' or process" that could "impose" policy and said the agreement failed to "distinguish adequately" between legal and illegal immigrants. Read more on the pact here.