Saunders: Immigration bans worsen the problem they’re meant to solve

Manage, not ban:

…A complete ban of a country’s people, or a closure of legal border crossings to significant populations, does the opposite. It inverts the risk equation by reducing the odds of a legal, controlled application succeeding to zero. And therefore the comparative benefit of sneaking in or simply showing up or overstaying rises infinitely. In other words: bans strongly incentivize illegal immigration.

That should be well known to American leaders by this point. Despite the walling-off of the southern border and closure of most forms of legal entry and asylum at its crossings under Mr. Trump in his first term and continuing under Joe Biden, the proportion of irregular entries and dangerous smuggled crossings rose. They were reduced to negligible levels in 2024, mainly through judicious use of limited legal pathways. 

The Safe Third Country Agreement has the same effect in Canada: By completely banning entire categories of people from any regular-entry application, however unlikely its success, it creates a powerful incentive structure to make dangerous irregular walks across the border. Therefore, when people seek to flee Mr. Trump’s policies, as they did in his first term, they seek to come through fields, forests and lakes, at great risk.

A restricted, controlled immigration system is good for everyone, including immigrants. But restriction becomes a perverse incentive to illegality, as Mr. Trump keeps failing to learn, if you reduce the target to zero.

Source: Immigration bans worsen the problem they’re meant to solve