At The International Economy: A Future of Open Borders?

(I am an occasional contributor to roundtables of economists in the magazine The International Economy. The latest roundtable invited contributors to imagine some unexpected development we might see over the next decade – “an outside-the-box speculation on matters that to-day seem improbable, if not impossible.” The mix of predictions make interesting reading.)

Over the next decade, we could see a dramatic reduction in immigration restrictions, with movement between countries much easier in 2035 than it is today. In a wider historical view, this is not as radical an idea as it sounds.

A world of open borders does not lie far in the past. If you are an adult in the US, or the UK or many other countries, your grandparents may have entered the country at a time when there were essentially no restrictions on immigration. A decade from now, we may see a return to open borders, or the beginnings of one.

In today’s debates over migration, it’s easy to forget that for much of history, open borders were the norm. The US banned immigration from China in the late 19th century, but there no numerical limits on immigration from the rest of the world until the Immigration Acts of 1921 and 1924. The same goes for much of Europe — immigration was essentially unrestricted until after the First World War. 

The economic case for immigration restrictions has always been weak. 

Since David Card’s pioneering work on the Mariel boat lift 40 years ago, careful studies have generally found that migrants have little if any effect on native wages — which should not be surprising, since migrants are a source of demand as well as labor supply. And claims that migrants will overstrain welfare systems overlook the fact that our most generous provision is for old age. Working-age migrants pay in more than they take out, leaving social insurance systems stronger, not weaker.

Domestically, we recognize that cities and regions that lose population are in trouble; a growing population is a sign of economic success. Around the world, the most dynamic cities and regions are filled with immigrants — either from abroad, or rural areas from which the social distance is just as great.

I am typing this in Bangalore, center of India’s high tech industry — and not coincidentally, a magnet for immigrants.  Half the city’s residents have migrated here. Many from states elsewhere in India that are as far off economically and linguistically — not to mention geographically — as the other side of international border. Average income in Karnataka, where Bangalore is located, is six times than in the Indian state of Bihar — a difference double that between the US and Mexico.

Of course there is friction like anywhere else, and an expectation that immigrants — or at least their children — learn the local language. Yet no one here seriously suggests that migration within India could or should be legally restricted. Perhaps, in a generation, a world of tight limits on movement across international borders will seem equally absurd.

It is true that anti-immigrant sentiment is strong in much of the world today, stoked by demagogic politicians. But public opinion can change, often faster than we expect. As recently as 2020, a plurality of Americans told pollsters that immigration was too low, rather than too high. We could soon see a swing back in that direction, especially as the full costs of anti-immigrant policies become clear.

Until recently, the status quo in many Western countries was that there were strict immigration controls on the books that were not really enforced. In the US, there are more than 10 million people who, under the law, have no right to be here. Yet until recently, few people wanted — and even fewer expected — many of them to be forcibly deported. Meanwhile, a refugee system has been working in ways it was not really designed for, but that accommodates the inescapable reality that people in desperate situations are not simply going to give up on the chance for escape. 

Now people are getting a taste of what actually enforcing the existing immigration law would look like. Many of them, polls suggest, are deciding that this was not what they wanted after all. If trying to make the real world conform to the rigid borders imagined in law turns out to be costly and unachievable, then perhaps it’s time instead to make the law correspond to the porous, overlapping communities we inhabit in reality.  

At a time when immigration rules are being enforced more aggressively than perhaps ever in our lifetimes, it may seem strange to suggest that a world of open borders is just around the country. But if we look back at history, we often find that the strongest rules are the ones based on consent; rules enforced by violence are brittle and vulnerable. This may be true of migration. A decade from now, we might look back at raids by masked immigration agents the same way we look at, say, the suppression of protests in Ceausescu’s Romania — as a final outburst by a regime that was about to give way to something very different.