[aegypti]

Those are US state legislators. We have 7,386 of them. Sometimes a few wander outside during their election races.

You could easily fit that delegation into New Hampshire’s House of Representatives of 400 seats.

Meanwhile it’s more than double California’s total state legislature size of 120 seats.

It’s fun!

[forgotoldacc]

Still a strangely high number.

Imagine 250 representatives all going to a country with a similar population. It'd be mighty strange if 250 representatives from across the US went to Kyrgyzstan. Frankly, I'd find it strange if 250 went next door to Mexico all in the same year and that's a directly neighboring country that's actually relevant to US interests and the US's single biggest trade partner. Israel gets some sort of special treatment and it's really, really weird. It's treated with higher reverence than any state within US borders is.

[aegypti]

This is actually easily explained by Israel having an intimate role in US foreign policy and culture for the past 80 years instead of being a majority Muslim constituent republic of the Soviet Union!

[forgotoldacc]

Korea, Japan, UK, Mexico, Canada, etc all are tightly entwined with the US and its culture. The first 3 had major roles in opposing the USSR. Politicians aren't taking trips to any of those countries en masse. Nobody is having their visas canceled for criticizing any of those countries. No college is losing funding if someone complains about those countries.

[aegypti]

None of those countries are currently committing genocide, their lands were settled long ago!

[jajko]

You sure are asking uncomfortable questions, better ignore or divert that

[throwaway3060]

It would be more accurate to compare to England, France, or Canada. The US relationship with Mexico is complicated.

[forgotoldacc]

Sure. Let's ignore the country with the biggest source of immigrants to the US and largest modern cultural and demographic influence. We can move the goalpost and go with those examples.

When was the last time 250 representatives visited any of those countries?

(This is also an account that exclusively posts defending Israel)

[throwaway3060]

None of which has anything to do with which countries politicians feel most comfortable visiting. If the political class felt much affinity with Mexico (rightly or wrongly), I imagine that there would be much less talk of a border wall. Clearly they do not feel the same way about Canada.

I doubt that there are recorded numbers just for politicians, but these are all popular destinations for Americans in general. Now, if there's something else odd about this statistic other than just the number you want to point out, that's a different story.