Governments around the world are guarding their national borders like never before. Spending on state security and surveillance is increasing by billions of dollars every year as political leaders respond to record numbers of international migrants and growing anti-immigrant sentiment among voters.
In 2025, for the first time in years, the clampdown appears to be having an impact on global migration patterns.
Immigration remains one of the top three issues for voters in the UK alongside the economy and health. More than 85 per cent of migrants who come have been given visas by the government. But the remainder – people who may be fleeing wars, persecution, poverty and natural disasters – arrive uninvited.
Such irregular or illegal migration is a hot political issue across the Western world, prompting questions about the numbers of foreigners crossing international borders and the impact they have economically and culturally.
Donald Trump has made keeping people out of the US a defining issue for his Presidency. His “Big Beautiful Bill”, signed on 4 July, will see $145bn spent on border security and immigration enforcement.
The White House is already claiming that the numbers of migrants leaving America is now greater than those arriving. The policy think-tank AEI is projecting that US net migration this year may fall to -525,000 and reckons it is destined to fall further still. Trumptook to Truth Social in August to claim victory: “Promises Made. Promises Kept. NEGATIVE NET MIGRATION for the First Time in 50 Years!”
The Department of Homeland Security has claimed more than two million “illegal aliens” have already left the US this year, including 527,000 deportations. Analysis by Pew Research Centre suggests the number of immigrants in the US dropped by 1.4 million between January and June 2025. If that proves accurate, it will be the first time since the Great Depression that America has seen net negative migration. Economists are warning that the turnaround in US migration policy may lead to shortages of workers, forcing up labour costs, fuelling inflation and restricting growth.
Trump’s uncompromising language and tactics may seem alien to European leaders, but controlling immigration has become a political imperative for many on this side of the pond too. Increased border security and much tougher enforcement have been introduced across Europe – and it’s having an impact.
The EU is reporting a sharp drop in both irregular border crossing and asylumapplications. The European Border and Coast Guard Agency reports a 22 per cent fall in irregular entries in the first ten months of this year, with some migrant routes seeing arrival numbers down by more than half.
Meanwhile, the European Union Agency for Asylum reported that asylum applications across EU countries fell by 23 per cent in the first six months of 2025 compared with the same period a year earlier. Partly, that is down to preventing would-be refugees from reaching Europe, but the biggest reason is a reduction in Syrian claims. Following the fall of the Assad regime a year ago, more than a million exiled Syrians have returned home.
One consequence is that Germany, which accepted almost a million Syrian refugees during the country’s civil war, is no longer the top destination for EU asylum seekers. France (78,000) and Spain (77,000) accepted the greatest numbers between January and June this year, with Germany welcoming 70,000. By comparison, the UK registered just under 50,000 asylum claims in the same period, one of the highest rates ever seen.
The United Nations estimates the number of forcibly displaced people in the world began falling this year, the first drop in more than a decade. However, the number of those who have formally applied for asylum in another country is at a record high. The UN’s International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has estimated there are currently 8.4 million people fleeing war or persecution and seeking sanctuary. In 2020, there were less than half that number. The increase has been driven by conflicts in Africa, notably the war in Sudan, which is deemed the world’s largest displacement crisis.
Around 13 million Sudanese people have been forced from their homes, with four million seeking safety in other countries. Earlier this month, the United Nations described communities trapped in “siege conditions”. Agencies have reported “alarming” child malnutrition levels with the UN warning the outlook “remains bleak”.
The IOM has said that this year’s welcome fall in the number of people displacedworldwide could be quickly reversed without an end to hostilities in Sudan, theDemocratic Republic of Congo and Ukraine. Conflicts in Yemen, the Central African Republic, Ethiopia and Myanmar may also push displacement back up, with climate-related disasters an increasing risk. The IOM fears that cuts to international aid budgets may have “dire” implications for responding to forced displacement and helping people return to their homeland.
This year has also seen warnings about the economic and social consequences of tougher controls on migrant workers. More people than ever now live in a country other than the one in which they were born. The most recent estimate suggests there are 304 million international migrants, double the number in 1990, although still only 3.7 per cent of the global population. Two-thirds of all working-age migrants move for reasons of employment.
Amid growing social and political concern about the impact of immigration, many governments have sought to reduce the numbers of migrants given work visas. The EU population was put at a record 450.4 million earlier this year, an increase of more than a million in 12 months driven entirely by immigration, mostly foreign workers and their families. While such arrivals generally boost economies, domestic concerns about the cost-of-living and struggling public services have seen a growth in anti-immigrant sentiment in many parts of the world. However, the president of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde told a meeting of bankers this summer that without foreign workers the EU economy would have been in a “far weaker” state.
Migrants are thought to have contributed significantly to economic growth in Spain and Germany and more modestly in France and the Netherlands. Lagarde also noted that migration had played a crucial role in offsetting the negative impact of shrinking birth rates across the Western world. Without immigration, officials say the UK population would almost certainly be getting smaller.
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That is also true in many other EU nations including Germany, Spain and the Netherlands. The populations of Italy, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Estonia are already declining because too few migrants are arriving to offset natural falls. The right-wing Italian government regards both the falling birth rate and immigration as “national emergencies”.
In the UK, government advisers say that without immigration, the problems of an ageing population would be much worse. Annual net migration to the UK has fallen significantly in the last couple of years, down from a record 944,000 in March 2023 to 204,000 in June this year. This is largely down to a tightening of controls on legal migration, including tougher restrictions on dependents accompanying those coming to the UK to study or work.
But as in many Western countries, while there may be short-term political gains from restricting immigration, this year’s squeeze on arrivals may well present economic and social challenges in the longer-term.
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