Immigration Time Bomb

The Narrow Pursuit of Present Success Sacrifices Future Interests (A Joint Production with James's Newsletter)

Everything in life involves trade-offs.

Government policies must balance the interests of the present with the interests of the future, taking into account so-called “second order” consequences as a central focus.  These might come as early as tomorrow or as late as when presidents are no longer in office. 

It’s probably too much to ask a president laser-focused on the present to give two hoots about the future—particularly the day after tomorrow or next year or further out still.  After all, the president presumably won’t be around by then and the blame will be harvested by whoever is.

Photo by Fabian Fauth on Unsplash

In few places is this obsessive focus on the present more evident than with immigration, the issue on which more than any other the president was elected.  And the present success is palpable, tangible, backed up by the numbers.  Illegal border crossings are way down.  One example: The number of illegal aliens apprehended at the Southwest border between ports of entry in March 2025 was 95% lower than in March 2024.  By any measure, this is a stunning success.  

 You can argue with the methods, you can dislike the intentionally heavy-handed policies, you can cite the lack of due process in many cases, you can decry the deportation to third-country gulags, you can grimace at the demonization and criminalization of immigrants and the absurd, phony statistics about terrorists and murderers, but you can’t argue with the numbers.

Promise made, promise kept.

The problem is that this success reflects a simple—and probably fleeting—moment in time.  Moreover, nothing the administration has done has changed the dynamic in the source countries of migration.  As long as per capita income in the United States is 25 times that of, say, Honduras, people will have a strong incentive to leave.  As long as source countries are plagued by violence and criminality, corruption and poor governance, and lack of economic opportunities, people will try their luck elsewhere.   In other words, as we’ve said before in these pages, after Saturday night comes Sunday morning.

But they’ll wait for the right moment to pack up and leave.

Most immigrants – or potential immigrants – are biding their time, waiting for the right moment to go.  That moment is emphatically not now.  

Meanwhile, the store of potential immigrants rises like a reservoir slowly (or quickly) filling, until it begins to spill over again.  The reasons for immigrants leaving their home country remain unchanged, the “root causes” unaddressed. 

It’s important to point out here that the nature of illegal immigration has changed over the past decade.  It used to be that the vast majority of would-be migrants snuck across the border.  That has changed dramatically.  Now most people turn themselves in to border agents and claim asylum, triggering a legal process which can take years to adjudicate because of huge backlogs in the system.  If a migrant can demonstrate “credible fear” of persecution should they return to their home country, they are admitted to the United States, given a court date, and will eventually receive permission to work while they await their due process.  Huge numbers of migrants who entered the U.S. over the past decade did so through the asylum system and, as long as they kept their court date, were not “illegal”.  There are literally millions of asylum cases pending.¹  It is also important to note that the Trump Administration has shut down the legal asylum system and no new claims are being admitted.

And while the Trump Administration has successfully halted migration at our southern border, it hasn’t done anything to impact the “push” factors that impel people to leave their homes.  Not only that, these root causes may well be exacerbated by the current U.S. policy approach—to immigration in particular and by the “America first” vision more broadly.  That is, the “success” of the administration’s immigration policy carries the seeds of its own future failure and reversal.  This for at least two reasons:

One is that people are self-deporting or being deported against their will to their home (or third) countries.  The source countries can’t meet the needs of current citizens, much less those of returning migrants.  This adds to the number of people who would potentially go to the U.S. in the future while raising pressure on failing judicial systems, labor markets, healthcare, and education systems.  

Another factor may come into play if the re-shoring of economic production to the United States from historical immigration source countries occurs.  This would further erode the economic foundation in those countries, undermine economic opportunities there, and contribute to potential future immigration.  Trade accords such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA, a Trump 1.0 accord that updated NAFTA), the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) and related agreements in South America and around the world were intended in part to promote “shared prosperity”.  That is, to help build the foundation for political stability and economic prosperity in those countries, and reduce the incentives for people to leave their home countries and come to the United States.

As economists know, immigrants (legal and illegal) are “rational actors” in this sense.  They go because they have incentives to go.  They’re better off here than they are at home.  Full stop.  Most if not all would choose to stay home if they could, if it made economic and broader sense not to go.  Few make the long and treacherous journey to an uncertain future in a foreign (potentially inhospitable or even hostile) country for “fun”.  Past U.S. policy acknowledged this complex reality, and sought to address the underlying reasons for immigration, its root causes.  Prior administrations used development assistance to try to improve citizen security, improve governance, attack corruption, and create economic opportunities so that people might see their futures at home and not in the United States.

Has the policy of past administrations to attack the root causes of migration worked?  Short answer: obviously not.  Longer answer: sustainable success depends on a minimum of policy continuity and competent implementation.  (Probably on an overhaul of our immigration laws too, but who’s asking?)  For example, it’s hard to imagine being able to manage, much less solve, the “push” factors of migration in the absence of development assistance, even if this assistance alone is insufficient.  Another necessary ingredient is political will—and the accompanying resources—of the host country.  In Central America, for example, the first Trump Administration cut off assistance meant to address migration as “punishment” because the source countries were “sending” migrants to the U.S.  The Biden Administration had to kickstart programs that had been terminated and try to bring them back on line, with limited short-term success.  Now the second Trump Administration has shut down USAID and its programs aimed at keeping people at home.  

One thing is clear: whether development assistance is flowing or not, if life doesn’t improve in the source countries or look like it will, the pent-up demand to leave will eventually burst.

However unintentionally, a policy approach that undermines the precarious foundation of economic production in Mexico, Central America, and other countries that feed (particularly illegal) immigration to the US will have a counterproductive effect.  The reservoir of potential immigrants will rise faster, the underlying conditions in source countries will grow more precarious.  The water will spill over the reservoir’s edges or the dam will burst eventually.  

Of course, if our president has his way, the bursting of the dam will happen only after he leaves office (assuming he does), so the blame for “failed immigration policy” can be aimed squarely at his successor(s):  “Look at the numbers when I was in office protecting the American people from foreign invaders.  Look at them now that the dam broke.  Après moi, it was literally le déluge.”  But given the other time bombs being planted in different policy spheres (from the national debt to alliance management), one gets the sense that immigration may be the least of our future problems.

At this point most Americans probably agree on the rough outlines of a plan to deal with immigration, or at least on the top 2-3 priorities.  First, overhaul and streamline the system for legal immigration, to make things easier and more predictable for those who play by the rules and to ensure that those who come to our country meet needs that can’t be met in other ways.  Second, provide better border controls and security while closing the loopholes for those abusing the system.  Third, enforce our laws appropriately while defending our values of basic decency and fairness in a way that balances the interests of the present with those of the future.

However that future shapes up, immigration will remain another challenge to be managed—both opportunity and risk—rather than a problem that can be definitively solved.

1. There are currently over 2 million people awaiting asylum hearings in the United States.  https://tracreports.org/immigration/quickfacts/eoir.html#:~:text=At%20the%20end%20of%20March%202025%2C%20out%20of%20the%20total,or%20decisions%20in%20Immigration%20Court.