The Coming Border Crackdown

Voters everywhere are fed up. In all the big countries that held elections in 2024, the incumbent party lost seats. Complaints varied, but two stand out. One was high prices (partly a consequence of pandemic-era largesse). The other was migration, which surged after Covid-19 border controls were eased. A sense that governments had lost control in both areas spurred voters to punish them in America, Britain and France in 2024, and hastened the collapse of Germany’s ruling coalition. In 2025 some leaders will try to reduce economic and cultural turbulence for citizens by shutting out foreigners. The most dramatic experiment will be in the United States. How it pans out will have global consequences.

Blaming immigrants for stealing Americans’ jobs and “poisoning” the nation’s blood, President-elect Donald Trump vows to round up and deport all those in the country illegally. The economic effects would be grim. If he deports only 1.3 million irregular workers (out of an estimated 8.3 million), America’s economy will be 1.2 percent smaller than expected by 2028; if he throws them all out, it will be a stunning 7.4 percent smaller, according to the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

If mass deportations are combined with Mr Trump’s proposed tariffs, thus simultaneously choking the supply of imported labour and goods, the damage will be even worse: an economy anywhere from 3 percent to 10 percent smaller than expected by 2028, and cumulative inflation 13–23 percent higher. Also, by another estimate, every 100 deportations will reduce the number of jobs for the native-born by 8.8.

Mr Trump’s plans are costly and legally questionable, but he will not need Congress to give him extra funds or authority. Instead, his advisers say he will revive emergency powers he wielded during the pandemic. Covid-19 may be gone but there are plenty of other diseases that immigrants might, in theory, carry – and the new president may use this as a pretext to end asylum. Building huge detention camps for migrants would be expensive, but Mr Trump could divert some of the Pentagon’s budget, spuriously claiming to be defending America against an invasion.

The main checks on him will be practical and political. Wholesale deportation would require the co-operation of law-enforcement agencies in states and cities run by Democrats. This will not be forthcoming, and unlawful migrants will seek sanctuary in such places. Public support for expulsions may plummet if it means tearing families apart – more than 11 million American citizens live with a relative who may be subject to removal. Specific industries, from fruit farms to hotels, will lobby furiously if their businesses are threatened by a labour shortage. So Mr Trump will surely stop short of the most extreme version of his plan.

Across the rich world, asylum rules will grow tighter in 2025. Italy’s attempt to process claims in a third country, Albania, has run into legal troubles, as did Britain’s similar scheme, in Rwanda, before it. But the notion that asylum-seekers should seek refuge in the first safe country they reach, rather than keep moving until they find a rich country, will gain currency. Mr Trump’s team talks of holding would-be migrants in camps in Mexico or Africa, in the hope of deterring many from setting off in the first place.

Irregular migrants will dominate the headlines. But many on Mr Trump’s team are also keen to curb legal migration, even of highly skilled people. This will dull America’s extraordinary dynamism: by one estimate, immigrants are 14 percent of America’s population but generate 36 percent of innovation. If Mr Trump makes legal immigration even harder than it already is, he will create an opportunity for other places, from Dubai to Switzerland, to poach the talent America spurns.

With large swathes of the world growing more hostile to foreigners, the advantages of selective openness will increase. Smart governments should trumpet how quickly they issue visas to high-achievers, and woo talent not just from America but from all “drawbridge up” countries, including China and Russia.

For policymakers in all rich countries, a smart immigration policy will involve striking a balance. Governments must show voters that they are in control of who is let in, and that newcomers must pay their way. Only then will voters consent to inflows sufficient to ease skills shortages, rejuvenate ageing workforces and prop up pay-as-you-go pension systems. Japan, which is ageing and shrinking faster than most, has quietly decided to admit an extra 800,000 foreigners over the next five years, in areas from nursing to construction work. There is little backlash; the jobs need doing and few Japanese want to do them. Other rich, ageing countries should pay attention.

Covid-19 showed that governments can close borders tightly if they choose to do so – and that the cost of doing so is high. If Mr Trump imposes comparable restrictions on America when there is no pandemic, he will make it less rich, less innovative and less humane. Other leaders should not copy him. But some undoubtedly will.

From The World Ahead, 2025 © 2024 The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved