Podcast Summary: "Why Immigration Policy is Hard"

Podcast: LSE: Public lectures and events
Speaker: Professor Alan Manning
Host: LSE Film and Audio Team
Date: February 2, 2026
Episode Theme:
This episode, the first of LSE’s 2026 Robbins Lectures delivered by Professor Alan Manning, tackles the complexities underpinning immigration policy in the UK and across high-income countries. Drawing on evidence, public opinion, political realities, and his direct experience chairing the UK Migration Advisory Committee, Manning explains why immigration policy is inherently challenging—yet often made even harder by political and societal polarization.

Main Themes and Purpose

• Immigration as a Political Flashpoint: Immigration has become a top political concern in most developed countries, generating deep public anxieties and polarized debate.
• Evidence vs. Emotion: The lecture emphasizes the importance of reason and evidence in crafting policy, but recognizes that public opinion—and misperceptions—play a dominant role.
• Binary and Polarized Debate: Manning critiques the entrenched, adversarial 'pro-immigration' vs. 'anti-immigration' narratives that dominate public and political discussion.
• Structural Global Inequality: A core reason for the difficulty is the lasting gap in opportunities between rich and poor countries, leading to a constant, overwhelming demand for migration.
• Policy Realities and Trade-offs: Making migration policy requires hard decisions about who to admit and who to exclude—often with no easy or comfortable answers for policymakers or the public.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Immigration: Salience and Public Perceptions

• Growing public concern: “More Brits name immigration as an important issue than anything else.” (06:27)
• Historical shifts: High concern spikes in the late ’70s, long lull, then resurgence in the late ’90s, accelerated by rising net migration.
• Misunderstandings abound:
  • Overestimation: “People overestimate the share of migrants in the population… in the UK 10 years ago, people thought the share was actually double what it was.” (13:53)
  • Legal vs. illegal: “In all of these countries, the most common answer is there are many more [immigrants] staying illegally than legally. Now, it's hard to measure... but there are no credible estimates anywhere near this.” (15:32)

2. What's Really Happening with Immigration Numbers

• World averages relatively stable (3.6% migrants in global population), but striking increases in high-income countries:
  • “In high income countries the share of the migrants in the population is higher... and it's risen by more and more.” (09:24)
• Historic highs: UK, Australia, Canada, and others are at or near their all-time migrant shares.
• Rapid change in the UK:
  • Shift from net emigration pre-1990 to high net immigration (700,000–900,000/year at its peak). “Quite possibly the fastest percentage annual rate of population growth for 200 years.” (19:01)
• Consent gap:
  • “For the most part, these rises in migration... have not had public consent. Most people, when asked, say they think migration is too high.” (22:14)
  • Public distinguishes between types of migrants, favoring skilled workers, doctors, and students, but not those seen as 'benefit claimants' or entering without authorization. (23:59)

3. The Binary and Polarized Nature of Immigration Debate

• Pro-migration narrative: Focuses on migration’s benefits, blames anxiety on media or scapegoats.
• Anti-migration narrative: Stresses policies should match public opinion, accuses elites of being out of touch.
• “This leads to a very binary way of thinking about migration. And this is where our discussion... begins to go wrong.” (28:05)

Polarizing Rhetoric on Both Sides

• Dehumanizing language (“a swarm of migrants” vs. “migration is Britain’s superpower”). (30:13)
• Exaggerated claims: “Terrible costs of mass migration” vs. “Low migration risks an economic doom loop.” (31:35)
• Slogans and T-shirts as tribal signals, not persuasive arguments. (34:37)

Motivated Reasoning and Echo Chambers

• Warning about confirmation bias: “We’re all susceptible to what's called motivated reasoning... stop for a moment and notice your own feelings.” (39:14)

4. The Underlying Structural Difficulty

Permanent Excess Demand for Migration

• Bad fit between migration desire and feasible policy:
  • “Where you live is the most important determinant of your quality of life... more people want to move to high income countries... than are realistically going to be admitted.” (41:00)
• Illustrative numbers:
  • US diversity visa lottery: 15-23 million applications per year for just 50,000 slots.
  • UK India professionals’ visa: 300,000 applications for 1,500 slots.
  • Evidence from free movement cases (e.g., Puerto Rico/US) shows large flows when borders are truly open, but the magnitude would overwhelm if globalized.

Rational Calculus for Migrants

• Crossing the Mediterranean, 1% chance of dying, but much higher prospective life expectancy/gains for successful migrants.
  • “Getting in the boat increases your life expectancy, even though you might die in the next few hours.” (43:55)

Migration Policy as Selection

• “Migration policy just means saying yes to some people who want to come... and saying no to others.” (41:38)
• “Choosing who to say yes to and who to say no to involves very hard, uncomfortable trade-offs.” (46:23)

5. The "Infernal Circle" of Migration Policy

A repeating cycle:

• Controls → frustrated would-be migrants → attempts to circumvent controls → perception of lost control → demand for more controls → further frustration and evasion. (48:44)
• “When we end up in a mess of migration policy, that's where we end up.”

6. Why Saying 'No' Is Hard (for Everyone)

• For pro-migration side: Emotional cost of exclusion; tendency to wish trade-offs away.
• For anti-migration side: Difficulty of enforcement; constant rule-bending and evasion (e.g., people arriving by bicycle at the Arctic border to exploit loopholes). (47:21)

7. Pathways to Better Policy

• Reject false binaries: “We’ve got to escape the binary, polarized discussion...”
• Focus on practical trade-offs and actual impacts on society.
• Recognize the inevitability of selection and the need for consent—but also for realism.

Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On binary debates:

  “The debates about migration end up as basically too binary and too polarised... We have polarization in a lot of our political discourse these days, not just immigration, but immigration is a pretty prominent place where we do that.” (28:05)

• On migration’s reality:

  “Migrants are just people. They're just ordinary people. They're not really superheroes, most of them.” (31:05)

• On the role of public consent:

  “If you want to make migration into a much less salient issue, you've got to close that gap.” (25:54)

• On the uncomfortable truth:

  “Migration policy just means saying yes to some people who want to come... and saying no to others.” (41:38)

• On why open borders are not feasible:

  “I don't think open borders as now is remotely a feasible policy. Just the numbers of people who would move would be fairly chaotic fairly quickly.” (43:15)

• On the “infernal circle”:

  “We end up with controls on immigration that leads to frustrated people who want to migrate; they try to avoid those controls... you go round and round... and we end up in a mess.” (48:44)

Selected Q&A Segment Highlights

[50:52] Should we only accept migrants of economic benefit to residents?

Alan Manning: “Not entirely... people also want to have more rights-based migration—family unification, humanitarian cases... Most people support providing protection for those in need, but also say they want controls over who and how many.” (50:52)

[58:27] Do specific attitudes toward groups remain steady?

“No mystery that people are not positive towards migrants they see as a burden, but quite relaxed about doctors or international students... My guess is that’s probably fairly constant.” (58:27)

[61:10] Can investing in origin countries reduce migration?

“Given income gaps, there's evidence that when people get richer over some range, they actually become more likely to migrate rather than less… Until you get to a certain level, migration pressures may go up with development.” (61:10)

[67:13] Should students be excluded from net migration statistics?

“Well, a lot of people are wrong... If [international] students leave after study, their long-term effect is zero. If they stay, you must count them anyway.” (67:13)

[76:24] What about aging societies as destination countries?

“That’s a very important effect... At the moment, in the UK, births equal deaths; population growth is all due to net migration. Many other countries have deaths greater than births. That will be the first thing I talk about next week.” (76:31)

[80:40] Is there an example of “successful” migration policy?

“No country has got it right all the time... There are places that have done better and worse—Canada, Australia for a while—but nobody has the magic answer.” (77:29)

[82:35] Will we see a “pause” in migration/low net migration?

“I don't see us going below into the tens of thousands net migration in the longer term. I don't think it's as easy as you say that you can just say 'we’re not going to have asylum or unmanaged flows'... Once people are on your territory physically, they become your responsibility... Australia’s offshoring did not work as people think.” (82:35)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Introduction & lecture series outline: 00:16–06:10
• Public attitudes over time: 06:11–13:53
• Perceptions vs. reality (overestimating numbers): 13:53–17:31
• Immigration numbers/data: 17:31–24:42
• Why debates are binary & polarised: 27:00–36:19
• Motivated reasoning: 39:14
• Structural challenge (permanent excess demand): 41:00–43:15
• Infernal circle of migration policy: 48:44
• Saying no is hard / policy trade-offs: 46:23–49:58
• Q&A (policy aims, political consent): 49:58–85:20

Conclusion & Next Lectures' Preview

• Migration policy’s inherent difficulty comes from (a) global inequality, (b) the constant capacity gap between aspiration and possible flows, and (c) our political and psychological discomfort in managing exclusion.
• The “binary” rhetoric (good vs. bad) blocks improvement in policy and debate.
• To do better, we must focus on pragmatic trade-offs—who do we say yes or no to, on what basis, and how do we secure informed public consent.
• Next lecture: Evidence on how migration affects destination countries—demography, economy, public services, and more.

For further detail and more nuanced discussion, see Alan Manning’s new book or attend the next Robbins Lectures at LSE.