this mostly applies to the U.S. but also most of the western world:
As Marxists we know that most policy is driven by what capital allows or within the increasingly narrow range of acceptable discourse it allows within bourgeois dictatorship
Obviously it’s not a conspiracy of ten guys in a secret room but a general consensus that develops from a chaotic web-like oligarchy of money peddlers, influencers, lackeys, billionaire puppetmasters, etc
But this really, really hurts Capital. they need the influx of cheap labor or face the real threat of forced degrowth. and we know every 
including 
is trying to make it harder for people to be childless but short of forcing people to procreate at gunpoint…
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so why allow this to become a bipartisan consensus (U.S.) instead of say throwing some scraps of social democratic programs?
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or in Europe’s case allowing these parties to come to power instead of reversing some neoliberal austerity?
Is this a case of anti-immigration just being easier to do vs. building resiliency into the system? i mean it’s always easier to write laws crimializing stuff and throwing cops at a problem i suppose
Or something else?
I think both parties want them here, just not legally. Even though we’ve “tightened”restrictions on who can legally come in, we have more people than ever crossing right now. My friend worked as a legal translator at the border for a few years during the presidential switch and was saying it’s a massive mess and the dems didn’t functionally change anything from when trump was in power.
My personal theory is that it looks great for unemployment numbers, making our economy look like it’s skating by when it’s on the brink of recession. We get to add hundreds of thousands of jobs without adding any people to the denominator making it look like the labor market is much stronger than it actually is. Also what other people said about having a sub-citizen population who are more willing to put up with shit so they aren’t deported.