Donald Trump, America’s new president, has cut back massively on US commitments to asylum seekers, blocked all asylum processes and started to remove irregular immigrants.
Trump’s new measures are far reaching. They include the suspension of the US refugee admissions programme. Flights booked for refugees to the US have been cancelled. Arrests and deportations have begun.
Strongly anti-immigrant policies were also pursued under the Biden administration, though Trump’s dramatic steps take them much further. Other countries in the global north have also introduced tougher policies. The 2024 EU Pact on Migration and Asylum sets out tougher border controls, quicker assessment of asylum seekers and swifter removal of those who did not qualify. In the UK, Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer has promised to bring down the net migration rate and treat people-smugglers like terrorists.
Based on my research into migration over the past 30 years I believe that these measures are unlikely to last. There are two linked trends that make closing the borders of the global north impractical and destined for revision.
The first is that populations in most of the global north are ageing fast (on average) and the fertility rate, or natural population growth rate, has plummeted. There are many more older people as a percentage of the population.
Secondly, with a workforce shrinking and the dependency ratio (the…
