On Immigration: A Matter That Is Electrifying Western Societies

I recently had the opportunity, on request, to provide my thoughts for a high-level paper on immigration in Western Europe.

Without going into much detail on the paper itself, my feedback was that current levels of immigration are too high in volume and too low in quality, and that Europe cannot sustain them.

The same applies to the USA and Canada.

There was a time when only the best and brightest, with value to offer, were allowed into Western societies.

Now just about anyone is let through the door.

And the difference is palpable.

Many new immigrants come into their host communities looking at how much they can take versus how much they can give.

Instead of being grateful for the opportunity, they walk about with a chip on their shoulder: too loud, too brash, too disrespectful. They fail to respect the norms of their new hosts, and to assimilate and blend into the national fabric as many model immigrants before them did.

Too many import the very habits and patterns that held back the countries they left. That erodes trust in their new home, and turns once-welcoming hosts against newcomers.

If formerly receptive and accommodating societies can no longer tolerate immigrants, then immigrants should, in part, ask why and seek to change their behavior.

But immigrants are only one part of the problem: the easy part to blame and vilify.

The real source of the problem, and the hard one to fix, is that Western politicians have lost touch with the broader public. They are in the pockets of billionaires and their corporations, and enslaved to neoliberal economic thinking.

The reason many politicians continue to mass-import cheap labor in the name of immigration and refugee support is precisely to help corporations lower their labor costs. In the age of AI and automation, this mass import should no longer be required. So why has it continued?

It has real costs for Western societies:

• Teenagers who can no longer get summer jobs at their local McDonald’s
• Young people who can no longer get jobs out of school
• Overcrowded schools
• Long waiting times for basic and specialist health care services that were once routine to get
• In parts of Europe, higher crime. Germany’s 2025 police figures show non-citizens make up roughly 15% of the population but over 40% of violent-crime suspects
• Rising insurance premiums (due to increase in theft) and cost of living
• In welfare states, rising deficits. Denmark’s own Ministry of Finance finds that non-Western immigration costs the state billions every year, while Western and work-based migrants pay in more than they take out
• Parks filled with jobless working-age men, unsafe for young kids and women-led families to play in
• Non-assimilation and blatant disrespect for social cohesion

The lesson in that Danish data is telling: immigrants who come with the relevant skills to work and the right set of values for easy assimilation to the host culture are net contributors to the system, wherever they come from. The problem is not where people come from. It is who we choose to let in, how many of them and their quality, and why.

There is a real problem, but many Western societies are too polite to name it for fear of being labeled extremist, radical, or racist.

The political process is also failing. The crisis of the moment requires fast feedback loops and correction, but it only gets corrected every four years, when much of the damage is already done.

I don’t claim to have all the solutions, but stating the problem clearly is half the solution. For the rest, here is what I can propose:

1. Radical reductions in immigration levels, optimized only for high-skilled people and investors.
2. Faster feedback loops in the political process for governments and politicians to course-correct. Perhaps elections every year – we can automate the process using AI to lower the costs. Or set a threshold of approval ratings below which that office is automatically called into election
3. Supporting and investing in good governance across many Global South countries, to reduce the reasons so many people want to leave.

The reality is that Europe and North America needs immigrants especially given the long term trend of decline in the youth populations. The quality of those they let in and their ability to assimilate into the prevailing host culture is what needs to be improved. Less not more, but of better quality should be the immigration policy.

The other long term fix is for host populations to have more children – but that is another rabbit hole beyond this essay.

If Western societies want to preserve their sanity, safety, and civic-mindedness, these solutions need to be implemented before it is too late.