Population Games

Migrants are at the top of many Americans' lists of concerns. For years, it's been mostly right-leaning citizens who've chafed at the influx of illegal (or undocumented or whatever your preferred term is) immigrants, so much so that Donald Trump won the GOP nomination by highlighting that issue. In what has become the norm, the Democrats, once back in power, saw that Red America disliked illegal immigration and wrote the opposite script. The Biden Administration has pretty much abandoned any premise of border control, to the point of suing the border states that sought to enforce it on their own.

Once those migrants started finding their way to blue states and cities (some sent there by red state governors, and some drawn there by "sanctuary city" proclamations), many of those who scolded Republicans for being heartless or evil or whatever in not embracing the combination of open borders and a welfare state are suddenly freaked out about the migrant problem.

The latest gag, and it's indeed a gag in how laughable it is, is in rebranding them (h/t Nellie Bowles at TheFP) as "migrants from Texas."

The narrative, presumably, is that once the migrants have crossed the border, they "belong" to the state they entered. With such luminaries as New York City's Mayor Eric Adams bemoaning the budgetary impact of a flood of migrants seeking shelter and sanctuary in a place that, years back, wrote laws to welcome them in theory and as a scolding of those who'd secure the border, this "migrants from Texas" bit is a gambit to place blame on the last place it belongs. Texas didn't ask for the influx, Texas didn't proclaim itself a sanctuary, and Texas didn't enact a right to shelter law.

Consider a different, less-discussed migration - people moving from one state to another. In 2022, the states with the highest inflows were Florida, Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. The states with the highest outflows were California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. Those top five inflow states went Republican in the 2020 Presidential election, while the top five outflow staes went Democratic.

This continues a trend that, in 2020, saw California, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia each lose one Congressional seat, Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina, and Oregon each gain one seat, and Texas gain two seats.

The trend bodes ill for the long-term prospects for the Democratic Party. As it's going now, the Wall Street Journal reports that six blue states will lose twelve House seats in 2030.

WSJ also reports that, but for immigrants (presumably including the legal variety), the blue-state exodus would be even more pronounced. The problem the blue states face isn't just the loss of power at the Federal level, however. As the affluent move to lower-tax states, the balance between 'givers' and 'takers' shifts in those states. The public assistance rolls grow, and the tax base from which to fund them shrinks.

There's not much the Dems can do about the outflows from their states without abandoning their cherished tax-and-spend ways. They nibble around the edges, dabble in ideas such as exit taxes, and call the emigrants nasty names.

What they are trying to do, instead - and this is becoming clearer the way murky water clarifies with time and settling - is counterweigh the red states' red-voting populations with "bought" votes. As in, at least by my reckoning, they figure to legalize the illegals at some point, grant them citizenship at some point, and expect that they will vote in favor of their blue benefactors.

That's why it's important to trap the migrants in the states they first entered, rather than welcome them into the cities that posted "Welcome" signs. It puts the lie to the notion that the blue voters care more - the migrants are just political pawns.

This strategy has a reek of desperation about it, however. In being so flagrant in ignoring the border, they risk backlash from their own voters. Latinos, who I've long argued are a better fit in the GOP, are showing more and more signs of abandoning lockstep-blue voting, and a growing number of Democratic voters in blue cities and states are unhappy with the migrants flooding their neighborhoods and draining their public coffers. If this strategy is to work, the Democrats will have to rely on tribalistic inertia and party loyalty to retain many of those disgruntled voters.

At the heart of it all is a contempt for the voters themselves. Rather than recognize the message of the outflows, the blue states persist in their tax-and-spend ways. Rather than consider the citizenry's increasing suspicion at the massive influx of illegal migrants, the administration digs its heels in. Rather than adjust the nation's immigration laws in order to facilitate more legal immigration (something I strongly favor and have discussed many times), it leaves the legal path tortuous and capricious, and further incentivizes the illegal path.

Contempt for the voters is a hallmark of the Obama-Biden dynasty. Obama entered office in 2008 with a 60/40 Senate supermajority and a 255/179 House majority, but was rebuked by the voters in January 2010 (Republican Scott Brown won Democrat Ted Kennedy's Senate seat), in November 2010 (the GOP took control of the House in the mid-terms), in November 2012 (he won re-election but his party lost more seats), and in November 2014 (the GOP took control of the Senate). On top of that, his party lost over 800 state-level legislative seats and thirteen governorships during his tenure. None of this dissuaded him from his agenda. Biden lied to the voters about his "moderate" intents, and became a leftist juggernaut from Day 1 of his Presidency.

It's also a hallmark of the Best-and-Brightest, who see "public service" and read "management of the masses." Rather than heed the desires of the nation's citizens, they spend their time and efforts finding ways to make life harder. Out of some misguided, misinformed, and misanthropic "greater good" motive.

The contempt behind flooding the nation's red states with migrants, then penning them in there so that the blue states aren't inconvenienced, is breathtaking. Yet, there it is. The citizens voting with their feet is another problem they are addressing with cynical ploys rather than correcting what's causing the outflows is also telling.

The Presidency is also "at risk" from the domestic migration. As Henry Olsen discusses at NR, the GOP's path to the White House will grow easier if this trend continues.

Thus, I expect that, sometime this decade if the Dems regain total control of Congress, there'll be an amnesty for all the illegals they've let in, with citizenship and voting rights to follow. Though even that might not be enough. Historically, immigrants have typically wanted to be the "last ones in," and new voters might be of the "what is good for me now" mindset rather than "I must reward those who let me in." Especially if the "give me" migrants go to blue states while the "I'll make my way" immigrants stay in red states.

At the heart of this are people who want a better life. American citizens moving to more hospitable states, and migrants hoping for a better life in America. I respect the efforts of the former, and feel for the latter.

However, and this is a big "however," as long as the nation has a welfare-state mentality toward those in lower economic strata, an open-borders immigration policy, either the legal variety or the current lawlessness, is unsustainable, rife with moral hazard, and detrimental to the nation, its citizens, and many of the immigrants themselves.

It's just obvious you can't have free immigration and a welfare state. — Milton Friedman

Those who defend the no-border with rhetoric about compassion often rebut their own words by their NIMBY behaviors, and the rest of them are simply playing power games.