Around the time that Donald Trump appeared to be a serious contender for the presidential race, I finished up my German dual citizenship application. When I was

Around the time that Donald Trump appeared to be a serious contender for the presidential race, I finished up my German dual citizenship application. When I was at the consulate, the person that I met with mentioned that they were absolutely swamped with applications for citizenship and proof of citizenship. Anecdotally, I know two other people who are working on acquiring their Italian citizenship, one other who acquired their German (dual) citizenship (and moved to Europe), and several who are applying for citizenship in non-EU countries. I don't think the US and Britain (and those who would like to follow their lead) appreciate the energy and means of the people who they are pushing out. We all talk about immigration as the onslaught of poor people (degrading some cherished way of life or needing shelter from persecution etc.) without seeing the full picture. To be clear, I'm not saying that these immigrants are unimportant, just that there is a bigger picture. The person at the consulate said that they had _thousands_ of pending applications for citizenship documents. This is for one country (Germany). Friends of friends in the Philippines are not interested in coming to the US any more. They want to go to Canada. Filipino immigrants run the US health care system. This relationship is genuinely helpful to the US. US needs more nurses, the Philippines trains them and sends them (not so good for the Philippines, but I'm not looking through that lens in this comment). Why cut off that labor force? Limiting supply (by telling immigrants that they are not welcome) causes real and direct harm to people who need to be taken care of in the US. The damage of xenophobia and nationalism takes longer than one (US) political term to appear, but the cultural shift is hugely negative for the future. I believe that there are failure modes in globalization, and we are experiencing one now, but scrapping the whole idea is an overreaction. If you want to be part of the solution, find ways to tell people around the world that the US (or the UK) is better than what its politicians say and do.