The fundamental problem for immigration activists

There are two main groups who support higher immigration: people who vote for left-wing parties, and people who bankroll right-wing parties...

Written by Noah Carl.

There are two main groups who support higher immigration: people who vote for left-wing parties, and people who bankroll right-wing parties.

Those in the second group have entirely self-interested reasons for supporting higher immigration: to increase the supply of labour, thereby reducing workers’ bargaining power; and to get the workers they need ready-trained (rather than having to sponsor their training themselves).

Those in the first group, by contrast, have at least partly altruistic motives – or they purport to have such motives. They care about the principle that people not be held back by morally arbitrary barriers like national borders. And they care about the well-being of the immigrants: just because someone happened to be born in a different country from me, they reason, why should his or her interests be discounted?

Unfortunately for those in the first group, they face a fundamental problem.