The general consensus among opponents of mass illegal immigration is that the immigrants in question are largely irrelevant in their purported supporters’ calculations. For all their rhetoric about compassion, the “promise of America,” and the “land of opportunity,” immigration supporters cynically think of immigrants not as people, but as tools, as the means to an end. Mass illegal immigration is the quickest and easiest way to change the nation’s electoral calculus—altering Congressional (and, by extension, Electoral College) apportionment to favor Democrats. Or it’s the best way to undermine “white privilege” in elections (and elsewhere) by upending the white majority status. Or—as in Great Britain—it is a way to upend the historical underpinnings of the nation, create a multicultural society, and make “the right” pay for its cultural intransigence:
The huge increases in migrants over the last decade were partly due to a politically motivated attempt by ministers to radically change the country and “rub the Right’s nose in diversity,” according to Andrew Neather, a former adviser to Tony Blair, Jack Straw, and David Blunkett.
He said Labour’s relaxation of controls was a deliberate plan to “open up the UK to mass migration,” but that ministers were nervous and reluctant to discuss such a move publicly for fear it would alienate their “core working-class vote.”
As with any such consensus, this one is undoubtedly rooted in at least some truth. Democrats in the United States did indeed hitch their wagons to the theory that demographic change would deliver them a semi-permanent electoral majority, and they’ve behaved accordingly for years. As for Great Britain, who am I to disagree with “an adviser” who helped craft the nation’s immigration policy and who believes that it worked precisely as expected and delivered the multicultural utopia he and his compatriots had long envisioned? Some significant part of the present immigration crisis—here, there, and everywhere—is inarguably the result of consciously cynical manipulation on the part of aggressive ideological operatives.
All of that said, however, it is perhaps unwise and unhelpful to overcomplicate matters. Hanlon’s Razor (attributed to Robert J. Hanlon of Scranton, Pennsylvania) admonishes that one should “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” Douglas Hubbard, a management consultant and author, coined what he called a “clumsier” version of Hanlon’s adage, which almost certainly applies here: “Never attribute to malice or stupidity that which can be explained by moderately rational individuals following incentives in a complex system.”
Government administration is, for good reason, associated with the term “bureaucracy.” For all the criticism it receives, bureaucracy remains the most rational and effective organizational structure known to man for the effective and efficient operation of large systems. Throughout the world, in democracies and autocracies, public and private entities are structured as “offices,” “departments,” and “bureaus,” each with its own specific function (division of labor), its own specific practices (written rules), and its own specific body of knowledge (expertise). This is how organizations operate. This is how they’ve always operated and likely always will.
That is not, however, to say that bureaucracy is a perfect system. Clearly, it’s not, and its flaws are significant and manifold. One of the most potent and enduring critiques of the bureaucratic model is that which is known as the “economic theory of bureaucracy,” or more commonly, “the budget-maximization theory of bureaucracy.” This model—first developed by William Niskanen in 1968 and expanded in 1971—posits that bureaucrats are rational actors who believe in the mission of their bureau, who believe in their own necessity to the bureau and its mission, and who, therefore, seek to maximize their personal and bureau-wide power, mainly by increasing the size of their budgets and the scope of their authority. Or to put it more bluntly, bureaucrats (and bureaucracies) are, first and foremost, self-centered. Their clients matter, but only as a measure of their own effective power. They are “moderately rational individuals following incentives in a complex system.”
If you pay any attention to the immigration debate in Great Britain, you’ll notice that one of the chief complaints of immigration opponents (rape gangs being among the most horrific) is that immigrants are treated exceptionally generously by the government, which gives them housing, monthly stipends, health care, and heaven knows what else. For example, just yesterday, Samantha Smith, a columnist for The Telegraph, The Daily Mail, and The Spectator, responded to the death of Georgia O’Connor, a 25-year-old female boxer who died of cancer after being denied proper care by the NHS, by tweeting that “Instead of shelling out billions to give illegal migrants priority hospital appointments and free taxi rides to the GP, how about we start taking women’s health concerns seriously and prioritising proper NHS care for British citizens?” The “two-tier Keir” complaint aimed at Prime Minister Keir Starmer isn’t just about the perception of a two-tiered legal system. It’s also about inconsistent access to state resources.
Likewise, in the United States, one of the key debates in the fight over Medicaid funding (and President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill”) centers on the provision of services for illegal immigrants, especially in states like California. Should taxpayers be forced to pay for illegal immigrants’ health care? Is it humane to take health insurance away from people who need it and who may well die without it? How did illegal immigrants get on Medicaid in the first place?
I can’t answer the first two questions for you; those are matters you must ponder for yourself. As for the third one, as well as the question of the government’s overly generous support for immigrants in Britain, it is entirely possible that the answer here is that bureaucrats made decisions to expand coverage, benefits, and budgets because that’s what bureaucrats (and bureaucracies) do. That’s how they retain and expand their power. That’s how they ensure that they remain necessary, vital, and respected. This isn’t a case of maliciousness or stupidity. It’s a case of moderately rational actors making incentive-based decisions to maximize their utility and, by extension, their benefits.
In the real world, what this means is that one of the potentially most effective means for managing illegal immigration is one that elected officials are largely ignoring. Although it is undoubtedly useful to focus on deportations and arrests and all of the symbolism attached to those acts, it might be more effective to shift the incentives driving agency behavior in the immigration system. And by this, I mean changing the incentives for various bureaus and departments. Rather than kick illegals off Medicaid, the federal government could “disincentivize” enrolling them in the first place. For every illegal immigrant enrolled in Medicaid, the federal share of a state’s Medicaid budget could be reduced, requiring it to pick up additional costs or make other changes. For every violation of federal law regarding the provision of Medicaid, staffing at the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services will be slashed by 100 jobs. Or…whatever. And note, this applies to all sorts of bureaucracies at the state and federal level, not just healthcare. If the federal government focuses on the incentives as they apply to the bureaucracies, then the bureaucrats themselves will focus on the incentives to immigrate illegally.
In the end, everything is economics, and all economics is about incentives. Like almost everything else in politics, illegal immigration is a problem created and exacerbated by Big Government. Fix that first, and everything else will become that much easier.