A rising storm of economic uncertainty is colliding with migration and identity, and the result is a brittle mood in many Western societies. James Fishback, running Azoria Capital, puts it in simple terms: “To foreigners who want to come to America and pursue the American dream, my advice is: stay where you are, and make your country great. Your nation needs smart and brave people.” He continues: “Americans don’t go to your countries demanding jobs, schools, and healthcare.” His voice may be loud but it marks a mood many feel but few articulate so directly.
What’s striking is how this rhetoric is rippling as the tectonic plates beneath the global labour market appear to be shifting. Amazon, for example, is planning to cut as many as 30,000 corporate jobs beginning this week, nearly 10 per cent of its roughly 350,000 office-based workforce. The same megatrends of artificial intelligence, automation and global supply chain volatility that ushered in the migration-wave era now threaten to upset its foundations. Countries that once imported labour to compensate for ageing populations or rapid growth may soon find themselves importing risk.
Fishback’s remarks are not unique but they point to a broader question: what happens when the old settlement model of migration meets the new model of hyper-automation, platform economies and fragile national identity? On one level, migration is a symptom. On another level, it is also the excuse for deeper anxieties about belonging, jobs and value.
His argument is blunt: “Take one example. An H-1B worker comes from India and takes a job meant for a qualified American, an American who was never even interviewed. Then, through an H-4 visa, the worker’s spouse and children come too. Now you have a family of 4 or 5 living here, taking out a mortgage, sending their kids to public school for free, using the emergency room, drawing on taxpayer-funded resources that Americans built and paid for. That is not okay.” These words reflect an economic anxiety that is heard as much from the new tech hire in Sydney as it is from a rust-belt voter in Kansas.
There is truth in that anxiety. Migration does change labour markets, social services and community balance. But equally true is this: we live through an era when those very labour markets are being disrupted by AI, robotics and systemic change at scale. Amazon’s pivot is relevant not because it alone will reshape the world but because it is a symbol. If one of the giants of global capitalism is cutting tens of thousands of jobs partly because of AI and cost pressures, then the contract between immigration, jobs and prosperity is under strain. When the job landscape contracts, what once seemed inclusive begins to feel competitive.
Fishback frames the debate as one country for one people: “America is for Americans, just as Haiti is for Haitians and Kenya is for Kenyans.” This framing introduces something less explored in mainstream coverage, the collision of migration policy with national sovereignty and the fear that globalisation erases the civic contract. He warns that “legal mass migration, the kind both parties have pushed for decades, is just as wrong.” Legal, he argues, does not necessarily mean equitable or sustainable if the underlying labour and civic contract is broken.
Across Europe, North America and Australia the signs of this rupture are visible. Anti-immigration rallies in Melbourne and Sydney reflect resentment of newcomers, anxiety over housing, wage stagnation and national identity. In the UK and Ireland there are reports of racially motivated assaults and sexual offences where migrants find themselves among the targets. Social media threads mocking diasporas as job stealers or invaders are climbing. Migration in the old sense—the idea of growth, integration and opportunity—is becoming a marker of divide.
Yet the deeper story is not about borders alone. It is about a world where the old guard believed that migration would always expand, that labour shortages would welcome newcomers without displacement. That old world is increasingly under pressure. Ageing populations, rising welfare costs and shrinking workforces once argued for open doors. Now the automation wave makes the same logic look fragile. If machines and algorithms replace workers, who then become the newcomers for? Who will pay for the social contract?
Australia, with its low population, vast energy resources and relatively open economy, may appear resilient. But the question is global: to what extent will robots and AI reduce costs, how much tax revenue will be required to maintain the old model of public services, and where will that revenue come from? If immigration is pushed as the fix, we may be mistaking a symptom for a solution.
The anti-immigration rallies are not the endgame. They are perhaps a sign of time coming, a warning flare from a system that assumes constant growth and continuous migration. When the mechanics underpinning that system are shifting, when tech replaces labour, when housing becomes unaffordable, when national identity feels squeezed, migration becomes the visible pressure point.
That makes tasks for governments harder. Policy cannot simply reopen borders or legislate more visas. It must grapple with structural change, redefining labour and thinking about what citizenship and belonging mean when loyalty is tested by global capital. It must ask: who belongs, who benefits, and how is value created in the new world?
For migrants and diasporas, the challenge is personal and generational. The question is no longer whether to come and build a life abroad, but how to anchor a life abroad when the ground beneath is shifting. What do you tell your children when they ask whether strangers really belong, both to the home they inhabit and to the country that hosted them?
Fishback’s voice may strike some as extreme, but he is tapping into a current few dare name explicitly. The migration machine, built over decades on the assumption of perpetual growth and labour demand, is straining. When a company like Amazon warns of thousands of job cuts due to AI, the labour surplus that migration filled seems less secure.
That does not mean migration is doomed. It means the conversation must change. We should not treat migrants as scapegoats. We must instead ask serious questions about how labour, technology and identity intersect. We must recognise that migration once served growth; now it must operate in a world of finite resources, automation and dynamic demographics.
What we are witnessing may be the cracking of the old world’s migration paradigm. As fences, not flows, come into view again, we are wise to watch and ask what comes next.
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