The UK government, in cooperation with France, has begun detaining migrants who have arrived by small boats, with plans to return them to France under a new bilateral migration pact. These arrivals are being held in detention centers until they are deported. This action, championed by Prime Minister Starmer, is being presented as a law-and-order measure meant to discourage further irregular migration and to undercut the business model of human smugglers. As part of the agreement, the UK will also accept a certain number of legal migrants from France, prioritizing those with family ties or particular vulnerabilities. Critics, including refugee organizations, contend this does little to stem the flow of dangerous crossings or provide safer alternatives, and that legal appeals may render the plan ineffective.

I must express profound dismay at the underlying assumptions of this policy and the thinking that spawned it. Where is the humility before the vast complexity of spontaneous social order? What hubris to imagine a bureaucracy can so masterfully arrange and re-arrange the destinies of thousands—nay, millions—of individuals fleeing hardship! The notion that state-administered barriers, bureaucratic filters, and bilateral quotas could “solve” the migration “problem” is a conceit rooted in the fatal error of central planning.

Policymakers proclaim the need to secure borders—by force, by threat, by detention. Yet they ignore the greater dangers born of treating human beings as mere units to be shuffled between holding pens by administrative fiat. Every restriction, every new layer of regulation, every new pact “managing flows” is an impediment not only to human freedom, but to the very knowledge processes by which a dynamic society adapts to change. What does the Home Office know of the aspirations, abilities, or potential contributions of those it detains? Who can calculate the unseen loss to society—the businesses not founded, the families not reunited, the skills not deployed—when a cold, impersonal system bars entry on the basis of arbitrary classification?

Furthermore, the mutual transfer arrangement—one migrant sent back for each one allowed in legally!—offers a perfect illustration of the mechanistic, rigid thinking that has riddled state policy since time immemorial. Migration, like trade, thrives not because of state allocation, but through voluntary, decentralized processes that unleash innovation and mutual benefit. No border patrol can eradicate the incentives born of desperation, nor outsmart the evolutionary ingenuity of those who seek a better life. At most, these efforts channel movement into ever more perilous and illicit forms, with all the tragic consequences we have witnessed.

Let us not be deceived that safety or justice demand more power to the state—more control, more gates, more cages. Europe’s greatness (indeed, the West’s!) was built on openness: on networks of exchange, not barriers; on individual initiative, not regulatory “solutions.” If we believe in liberty and prosperity, we should seek to dismantle these artificial boundaries and allow free men and women to find their own way in the world. Otherwise, we risk not only compounding suffering, but ossifying our own society in the rigid shell of centralized control—a fate far more dangerous than any influx of newcomers.