Growing opposition to immigration is reshaping global politics. A promise to ruthlessly crack down on immigration helped Donald Trump win a return to the White House in 2024. In his first week back in office, Trump declared a national emergency at the southern border. Since then, his administration has ramped up immigration raids on businesses, threatened widespread deportation, and canceled temporary legal status for more than a million people living in the United States. Even as voters have soured somewhat on the administration’s extreme tactics, more Americans approve of Trump’s immigration policies than they do any of his actions in other areas.

The United States is not an outlier when it comes to public hostility toward immigration. Anti-immigration parties have gained popularity across the globe. Far-right parties, which often base their appeal on bashing immigrants and calling for tighter border controls, are now the most popular political force in Europe. Even center-left governments, such as that of the Labour Party in the United Kingdom, have felt obliged to embrace hard-line immigration measures out of fear of losing further ground to the surging far right.

Defenders of immigration often argue that they have both the facts and the morals on their side. Immigration is not a zero-sum game: more immigration can boost local and national economies while improving the fortunes of people seeking better lives. Immigration advocates blame racial prejudice or misinformation for opposition to immigration and point to demagoguery that scapegoats vulnerable immigrants for economic and social problems. Although prejudice and ignorance likely play some role in shaping attitudes—and elite politicians are powerful forces in driving public opinion—the fact is that many citizens have genuine concerns about immigration that cannot be ignored. These include practical worries about whether the state can maintain order, promote fair job competition, and ensure that housing and public services do not become overstretched.

But these concerns do not mean that the only viable immigration policy is one that is as harsh as it is cruel. Finding a better political solution must start with understanding what drives public backlash to immigration. Many citizens are deeply troubled by mismanaged flows of people into their country. This concern stems from a failure of policy, not of messaging. Until decision-makers craft more targeted immigration policy that straightforwardly focuses on how immigrants can provide economic benefits, anti-immigrant attitudes and parties will continue to gain ground.

Most observers believe that governments should be more responsive to voters on immigration, but they often fail to understand what the public wants. One popular approach to addressing the anti-immigrant backlash is to set numerical targets, such as the United Kingdom’s goal of reducing “net migration.” This reflects a tendency to think of immigration as a numbers game. If governing parties assume that voters simply want fewer immigrants, they pursue policies to limit overall immigration. But research shows that even when mainstream politicians embrace hard-line positions such as capping the number of new immigrants, they still fail to win over disaffected voters.

In fact, few people care about immigration numbers in the abstract. Research shows that there is no correlation between public opposition to immigration and actual immigration levels. Small inflows have sparked intense controversy even in cosmopolitan places—as happened, for example, with the arrival of tens of thousands of asylum seekers in New York City in 2022. By contrast, far larger waves, such as the European Union’s reception of millions of Ukrainians after Russia’s 2022

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