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You're looking at this in completely the wrong way. Immigrants aren't "refusing to go." they're "deciding to stay." Illegal immigrants (unlike refugees) are ineligible for welfare and therefore pulled only by the prospect of relatively well-paying jobs at their destinations. Without those jobs, they don't have a reason to stick around. Yes, there would still be some need for traditional border security work: spot removals of immigrants that turn to crime would still be necessary. But mass deportation would require a draconian expansion of government power to work while at the same time just not being necessary. The vast majority of illegal immigrants would just leave if job opportunities dried up.
You're fixated on deportation as a solution, but deportation is build-the-wall style performative nonsense. It's like trying to catch-and-release house mice. All the incentives remain the same. As long as your trash is open and there's food on your floors, the mice come back. Republican political leaders don't support deportation because they think it'll work, they support it because they know it won't. People angry about immigration vote for them-- and the rich people that own the factories, meat packing plants, industrial farms, and hotels illegal immigrants work in vote for them too.
And besides-- you've heard about the difference between positive and negative rights, no? Turning "freedom from immigration" into a positive right requires government enforcement... and government enforcement requires sufficient political consensus that your enforcement apparatus can't be subverted by money-grubbing contractors or suborned by the opposition (i.e, me). That's why the only effective solution is the bounty system-- turning it into a negative right that citizens can largely enforce themselves by pointing out immigration-friendly businesses that "harmed" them.
Also, before you say something about how I like immigration and therefore am incentivized to propose a bullshit plan that wouldn't actually work, I'd like to point out that I'd take effectively the same approach to fighting climate change, and am in favor of the existing abortion bounty law and also in favor of the SEC whistleblower reward process that works similarly.. Getting citizens to inform on each other works. Imagine if your neighbors could sue you for getting your recycling wrong. You'd be a LOT more invested in separating the glass, paper, and aluminum, right? I'm pro-illegal-immigration, but this is genuinely how I'd try to stop it.
I think your ideas are sensible. I’m entirely happy to try what you suggest, and I expect it to have some effect.
The prior that I have and you don’t, is that being a beggar or a criminal in a rich country is as good or better for many people than their original situations. Realistically, it is hard to demand that every service require citizens ID. If we only implement your proposed scheme, it seems to me that the jobless illegals will go to soup kitchens, or run drugs and then spend their money legally in supermarkets. Hospitals will continue to take them if they break their leg, and every instance where someone is denied help for not having an ID will generate huge negative press.
Reducing ‘pull’ factors has to be part of the solution. Incentives matter. And indeed we already had that: the ‘hostile environment’ was British policy for a decade. But I think that it won’t work completely and the ones who remain anyway will be the most violent or desperate of the bunch. So I would be happy to implement your solution in conjunction with more active removals.
I am also dubious about relying on clever-clever legal schemes that work through unmeasurable incentives. They can be watered down in a hundred different ways by a hostile legal establishment and subject to perpetual warfare from international bodies. They can also be gimped from the start by the same government that lied to me about reducing immigration for 15 years. Whereas somebody is either deported or not, and it’s visible for all to see.
Are you european? Our priors might differ due to differences in american vs european immigration patterns. I can't speake for housed but homeless people (e.g., the kind of people I see in shelters) because I don't see them. But all the unhoused people I see seem to be natives, and all the illegal immigrants I've met have been hardworking and gainfully employed.
Also, from my experience being in latin america-- while the quality of social services is lower, I would FAR prefer to be unhoused there than here (assuming my support system has already abandoned me, anyways.) The climate is better, there's much less enforcement against shantytowns, and the police don't hassle you for laying out a blanket and selling random trash on the street. Plus, everything is cheaper so what little money you make goes further.
And in any case, your average unhoused person is constantly breaking low-level laws. There's not much appetite for police enforcement because they won't pay fines and it costs money to keep them in jail, but illegal homeless people could just be deported.
British. The government estimates that each (legal) migrant is a net loss of 150,000 GBP between arriving at 25 years old and reaching the pension age of 60. If they survive to 80, the bill becomes 500,000 pounds: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/09/12/low-skilled-migrants-cost-taxpayers-150000-each/. The largest cited reason for recent immigration is to join their family in the UK (i.e. not working).
There is also the issue of, frankly, racial politics. There isn't reliable data for the last few years, apparently, but English migration is primarily Polish, Indians, and Pakistanis (and I believe that the proportion of Eastern Europeans is dropping off now that Poland is becoming more prosperous). The Indians and the Pakistanis are extremely clannish, and many hate us for historical reasons. Then they have children who get the full woke treatment at school (often surrounded only by members of their own race). BurdensomeCount's "we will colonise you like you colonised us" is a sentiment I've heard several times now, and not as trolling.* There are maybe 55 million white English, our birth rates are terrible, and we import 0.7 million every year now. The future for us in a multiracial county looks like the future of Christians in the middle east.
Right. I'm happy to do the other stuff you suggest, as long as this doesn't have to be given up.
*Obligatory reminder that while the British colonised India, they were not settler colonists in any meaningful sense.
EDIT: I’m sorry, this doesn’t really answer your point. I think you are right about the different patterns of immigration causing different priors. I think due to a combination of poverty and political problems at home, many people are very reluctant to return.
It looks like we've converged on the question of, "what would actually, practically stop migration." To restate-- criminalize hiring illegal immigrants, and deport any immigrant (legal or illegal) that commits crime a deportable crime*. (E). So if you'll permit me to, I'll address the the larger discussion ("Under what conditions is immigration good? Do we presently exist in those conditions?")
First, I do want to point out that the topline figure you posted (150,000 GBP) applies only to "low-wage" migrants.The article you linked is under a paywall so I can't argue specifics, but I'd wager there's some debate to be had over
All that being said, I will admit that I'm largely ignorant of British immigration issues. I'm provisionally willing to take your word for its dangers. Instead of trying to convince you that your system is good, I'll try to convince you that the american system is better.
When I said, "immigration is good, as long as it's illegal," I wasn't joking. America's high rates of illegal immigration are an actual strength. Basically all of our legal immigrants are rich enough that we don't have to pay for their welfare, and then illegal immigrants work cheaply, contribute to our economy, don't drain the government purse, and stay terrified of committing crimes and getting deported. Sure, they also have anchor babies, which as you've pointed out would be/are threats to the cultural stability of european nations. But luckily america is blessed with an especially vigorous culture that's only gotten better at assimilating immigrants over time. The fact that the entire midwest is already populated by completely acculturated germans wasn't even our final form! Immigrants become culturally american extremely rapidly.
I understand why low-skill workers and people concerned with the maintenance of specifically white and/or protestant power don't want immigration, even despite the fact that culturally it's a nonissue and economically it's a benefit. And I wouldn't expect the arguments above to sway any of those people. (I have other arguments I could deploy, but they're admittedly much less convincing than the economic-cultural arguments.) But-- correct me if I'm wrong-- I suspect none of those things describe you.
* I'm being intentionally tautological here because it's a bit fiddly defining exactly what "deportable" means. Some crimes are major enough that we want the criminal kept around and punished. Some crimes should sensibly result in the deportation of any criminal that commits them, legal and illegal. Some crimes should be treated differentially-- legal immigrants get punished in-country, illegal immigrants get deported. And the smallest crimes (think, jaywalking) should mostly just result in fines for even illegal immigrants. I'm not a legal theorist so I wouldn't know whether to draw the lines, and thinking about how this could "really" be done probably makes you wary of too-lenient progressives ruining things. But I'd posit that that's more a crime-and-justice issue than an immigration issue... Barring weird edge cases like the nordics, you'll have a hard time finding people who want the justice system to be more lenient specifically against illegal immigrants rather than in general. So this fight boils down to the usual order vs. justice debate rather than any qualms you hold specifically about illegal immigrants.
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