Mass immigration: the paradox that undermines its own goal

Mass immigration: the country migrants seek stops existing as they arrive

The logic of mass immigration has a flaw few are willing to voice: those who arrive seeking a prosperous country help transform that country until it no longer resembles the one they chose. This paradox, uncomfortable and often oversimplified, runs through a deeper debate on demographics, economics and the welfare state.

The argument of the shifting destination

Some argue that migrants seek a place with a high proportion of local population that provides the framework of civilisation their home country does not offer. But if arrivals are massive and sustained, that proportion shifts, and the destination ends up looking more and more like the place being fled. It is a self-destructive loop: the initial appeal dissolves within the very process of migration. The conclusion drawn is that only a tightly controlled and selective immigration policy would prevent the countries absorbing population from deteriorating.

Pensions and public services: the broken promise

The economic argument carries the most weight in the debate. Mass immigration was sold for years as the solution to sustain pensions; 25 years after that promise was made, the most pessimistic analysis holds that the system is broken, along with the rest of the public services. Not everyone shares that diagnosis. Some point out that underdevelopment is not explained by the characteristics of a country's inhabitants, but by historical and geographical factors, and that Germany is not richer than Spain because its population is larger. The debate also points to a side effect: the country of origin loses the people best placed to drive change, and becomes entrenched as a net exporter of population.

The clash of positions: orchestration versus decline

Part of the discussion drifts toward a conspiratorial thesis: an elite would be planning the replacement of the native population, and the process is described as a silent genocide. The response to this is devastating: no culture is destroyed without consent. The argument instead centres on the decline of Western civilisation itself: low birth rates, a lack of sense of community, an obsession with money and a culture that sees itself as infantile. The internal critique gains ground: if the receiving society does not value what it has, no plan is needed to lose it.

The only possible consensus

With few exceptions, mass immigration as it has been practised seems useful neither for the country of origin nor for the destination. The best estimates point to a brain drain that does not solve development problems and to growing pressure on the welfare state. History is still being written; but the bill, as almost always, will be paid by those who arrived late to the contradiction.