Western Countries Do Not "Need" Immigration

But it may still be a good idea to have it

Many folks told me my latest post challenging the pro-immigration orthodoxy was like a breath of fresh air. To keep with the theme of radical honesty, I believe we also need to reflect on whether countries need foreigners in the first place.

Let’s be honest with ourselves: no Western country will collapse without immigration. The United States is a powerful, functioning state. So are Japan, Germany, France, and most of Europe. The lights will stay on. The trains will run. The US Super Bowl will be just fine without foreigners singing in Spanish.¹

Pro-immigration advocates who claim otherwise—who insist that immigration is “the only politically feasible solution to population collapse”, that normal GDP growth will be “impossible” without sustained immigration flows, that no one else will take care of your elderly parents—are overstating the case. And in doing so, they are losing credibility with the very people they need to persuade. When you tell someone their country cannot survive without immigration and they look around and see it surviving just fine, you have not made an argument. You have made yourself easy to dismiss.

So let me start where immigration skeptics start and explain why no country needs immigration. But in the spirit of radical honesty, I’d ask my restrictionist friends to return the favor—and follow their own argument to its logical conclusion.

The case for no immigration, taken seriously

One of the common good-faith conservative arguments against immigration is not about its effect on crime or culture—it is about dependency. As critics at outlets like The American Conservative have argued, wealthy countries have become “addicted to cheap labor.” If an economy cannot function without constantly importing foreign workers, maybe the economy is broken, not understaffed. Maybe the answer is automation, higher wages, and policies that get native-born men—millions of whom have dropped out of the labor force—back into productive work. Maybe immigration is a crutch that lets governments avoid harder structural reforms. This is a serious argument, and it deserves a serious answer.

But first, it deserves an honest concession: you can build a rich, functional country without much immigration. Consider Japan. In the early 1970s, Japan had a population of more than 100 million people and virtually no immigration. Over the next two decades, it built the world’s second-largest economy through domestic investment, export-driven manufacturing, and a disciplined, highly educated workforce. By 1995, Japan’s GDP per capita was among the highest in the world. No immigrants needed.

Or consider Sweden and Canada in 1900—two countries with almost identical populations of roughly five million people. Sweden was actually losing people: between 1850 and 1930, about 1.3 million Swedes—a third of the population—emigrated to the United States. Yet Sweden went on to build one of the world’s most admired welfare states. It industrialized, innovated, and became synonymous with quality of life—all without relying on large-scale immigration until the very end of the twentieth century.

Sweden also tells a different cautionary story. After decades of prosperity built on a homogeneous welfare state, Sweden began accepting large numbers of humanitarian migrants in the 1990s and 2000s. The result has been among the worst integration outcomes in the OECD: foreign-born residents face an employment gap of over 20 percentage points compared to natives, non-European immigrants earn 20 to 30 percent less even after decades in the country, and someone has to pay for it. Not surprisingly, the Sweden Democrats—an anti-immigration party—rose to become the second-largest party in parliament in one of the most cosmopolitan countries in the world. If you want an argument that not all immigration is beneficial, Sweden hands it to you on a silver platter.

So the restrictionist premise is correct. You can have a prosperous, well-governed country without letting foreigners in. Japan proved it. Even when you do embrace immigration, it can go badly if you do it wrong. Sweden proved it. Immigration skeptics are not crazy. On the basic facts, they have a point.

The question is what happens next

Japan’s population peaked at 128 million in 2008 and has been falling ever since. Today it stands at about 123 million. By 2070, demographers project it will drop below 90 million. Japan’s economy, once the world’s second-largest, slipped to fourth in 2023, overtaken by Germany—partly due to currency effects, but also reflecting decades of stagnation that economists consistently connect to demographic decline.

Canada took a different path. Starting from the same base of five million as Sweden in 1900, Canada chose relative openness. It built an immigration system—imperfect, sometimes messy, as I have written about—but one that consistently welcomed newcomers. Today, Canada’s population has grown to over 41 million, more than four times Sweden’s. The exact surplus to native-born Canadians from all that immigration can be debated and is likely modest per capita. But without relatively open immigration, Canada would be a much smaller, less influential country than it is today—and heading down the same demographic path as Japan.

Now consider the United States. When Matt Yglesias proposed “One Billion Americans,” many on the right thought he wasn’t serious. But in 1800, the United States had just 5.3 million people—smaller than Sweden is today. If someone had argued then for “100 million Americans,” they would have sounded equally delusional. The country got there—and then tripled that number—largely through immigration. According to the National Academies, most Americans today descend from immigrants who arrived after the nation’s founding. Without those arrivals, the United States would not have had the population to industrialize, settle a continent, or become the dominant power of the twentieth century. The notion that America can simply close the door and remain what it is—that is the truly radical position.

Stasis is not stability

Here is what immigration skeptics get wrong: they confuse the absence of collapse with the presence of thriving. Countries without immigration don’t stay the same. They age and, now they also shrink. They lose fiscal capacity. They still get “woke.” And, yes, they quietly start opening the very door they swore they would keep shut.

Japan is the clearest case. The country that proved you don’t need immigration has 2.57 million foreign workers—a record high, nearly triple the number from a decade ago, and growing at double-digit rates every year. Japan recently scrapped its controversial Technical Intern Training Program and replaced it with a new system designed to attract and retain skilled foreign workers, setting a target to admit even more. The government does not call this “immigration,” of course—Japan has never been comfortable with the word.² But whatever you call it, the country that needed no one is now competing globally for foreign labor.

Every retiree in Japan is now supported by roughly two working-age people, and that ratio is projected to worsen to less than 1.5 by 2060. Hospitals need nurses. Construction sites need workers. Someone has to care for the elderly, staff convenience stores, and contribute to the pension system. The Japanese government looked at the math and decided that ideological purity was a luxury it could no longer afford. Despite all the amusing hysteria about having a new ultraconservative prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, her government is planning to admit over 1.2 million foreign workers under new visa programs—because the math doesn’t care about your ideology.

The question is whether we want immigration

The word “need” has been doing enormous work in this debate, and it is time to retire it. No country “needs” immigration in the same way that no country “needs” international trade. Or universities. Or highways. A nation can exist without any of these things. North Korea basically exists without trade. Some countries have gutted their university systems and survived. You could stop building roads tomorrow and the state would endure—at least for a while.

But no serious person argues against trade by saying “we don’t need it.” The question is whether trade makes you better off. The same logic applies to immigration. The question is not whether your country can survive without it. The question is whether you want growth, innovation, fiscal solvency, and demographic vitality—or whether you prefer to manage decline.

Here is what strikes me most about the “we don’t need immigration” position: even if you accept every conservative premise—enforce the border strictly, be very selective, prioritize fiscal impact, demand almost complete assimilation, put the national interest first—you do not land on zero immigration. You still land on a lot of foreigners coming every single day for life.

And when restrictionists call for “zero immigration” or a moratorium or a “pause until we figure out what’s going on”—what does that actually mean in practice? Does it mean telling your buddy he can’t bring his wife home from Canada? Would you look a fellow American in the eye and say the government forbids him from living with the person he married? Would you tell a hospital already short on nurses that they need to start rationing care for seniors because hiring a qualified foreign nurse is off the table? Because that is who we are actually talking about.

The reality of migration on restrictionist terms

Immigration in practice is not just dangerous men sneaking across the border or businesses “importing” cheap labor in droves—it is an American citizen waiting years to reunite with a spouse, a rural hospital trying to stay open, a university lab trying to keep its best researcher. Even Donald Trump sponsored a foreign spouse—twice. If the policy you are proposing would not have let the president bring his own wife to the country, maybe it is time to revisit the policy.

If you believe in national strength, you should want the world’s best doctors, engineers, and researchers competing to come to your country. If you believe in family values, it is worth asking why the U.S. makes it agonizingly difficult for American citizens—including white, native-born Americans—to bring their foreign-born spouses home. If you believe in fiscal responsibility, the actuarial case for working-age immigrants paying into Social Security is straightforward. If you believe in national sovereignty, you should want a legal immigration system that works, so that people have lawful alternatives to crossing the border illegally.

Even Richard Hanania, who is hardly a bleeding heart progressive, has argued that opposing high-skill immigration is flatly irrational—pointing out that 46 percent of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or their children, and that restricting elite talent harms the country far more than any conceivable benefit from keeping people out. This is the argument that follows from taking national interest seriously. This is the logic of any competitive sports team: you want the best players regardless of where they come from. National strength works the same way. If you are serious about greatness, you recruit talent—you don’t turn it away.

I would like to hear an immigration restrictionist describe, concretely, the immigration policy they would actually be happy with. Not “less immigration” or “mass deportation now” as a slogan—a specific system. Who gets in? Through what channels? With what requirements? My prediction is that any honest answer to that question looks a lot like substantial, well-designed immigration—a points-based system, employer sponsorship, family reunification for immediate relatives, and yes, some humanitarian admissions. In other words, something not so different from what most mainstream economists and policy analysts recommend already.

The debate was never really about whether to have immigration. It was about how much, what kind, and how well-managed. That is a reasonable debate worth having—and one that pro-immigration advocates should welcome rather than fear.

No country “needs” immigration, but smart countries can choose it

No country will collapse without immigration. But the countries that chose it—thoughtfully, selectively, with an eye toward visible public benefit—grew larger, richer, and more dynamic. The countries that avoided it are now scrambling to reverse course before the math and the demographic reality catches up with them.

Immigration is not a necessity. It is an advantage—and right now, it is an advantage that is unusually easy to take. Hundreds of millions of people around the world want to move to wealthy democracies. That will not always be the case. Global population is projected to start declining within a few decades, and when it does, the competition for immigrants will get much fiercer. Countries that build good immigration systems now will have a head start. Countries that wait may find there is no one left to recruit.

The restrictionists are right that no country needs immigration. But they are wrong about what follows. What follows is not a reason for complacency—it is a reason for ambition. The smart move, on their own terms and by their own metrics, is to build an immigration system that actually works. Not because the country will collapse without one, but because the country that gets this right will be larger, richer, and stronger than the one that doesn’t.

Surely, some people would choose to be poorer and smaller rather than accept any immigration at all. I do not think most people would—not even most hard conservatives. And if you do, you don’t have to be a “white nationalist” to make that choice unlike what some critics say.

But please be straight with the rest of us: admit that you are fine with a shrinking economy, that you want native-born Americans picking strawberries at $50 an hour rather than learning a skill, and that you would rather manage decline than compete for the world’s best talent. That is a coherent position. It is just not a popular one—and the radical honesty I am asking for here should apply equally to the cosmopolitan left that pretends countries will collapse without immigration and the nationalist right that pretends they will be just fine without it. The real work is in the details—and proposals like, for example, this one show that serious restrictionists and other reformers may be closer to agreement than either side admits.

1. Of course, I’m talking about Shakira, a Colombian, who performed in 2020. What did you think I was saying? Puerto Ricans are Americans FYI.

2. You can call them “technical interns” or “specified skilled workers” or “temporary foreign residents” if you prefer. It does not change the fact that Japan now has millions of foreigners living and working in the country, many of whom will stay indefinitely.