Immigration centers as profit centers

Some companies consider customer service a cost center and minimize service delivered to keep costs low. Other companies treat customer service as a profit center. They recognize that a customer calling with complaints is paying maximum attention. Any action the company takes at that moment will have maximum effect, for good or for worse. Hence, each penny spent on improving customer service has enormous leverage on what the customer will do next – become a supporter of the company or its detractor.

Similarly, most countries treat immigration services as cost centers, whereas they should treat them as profit centers. When an immigrant enters a foreign country, they are maximally engaged. They can be taught that their new country welcomes them as productive assets, or not. They can be taught that their new country has institutions that they should seek, or that they should avoid. They can be taught that following the rules pays, or that breaking them does.

I’m not saying that countries should accept any immigrant that wants to reside within them; they do have a right to choose who they want to accept (though I do argue that many countries with shrinking populations should aim to increase immigration beyond current levels).

Instead, I’m saying that immigration centers should increase the likelihood that immigrants become well-integrated members of their new society, rather than decreasing them.

Immigration centers should teach that the State is there to improve the immigrants’ lives, not to make them worse.

Immigration centers should teach immigrants that their new country expects them to become productive members of their society, not add friction towards that.

Immigration centers should be optimized not for minimum cost but for faster immigrant acceptance and maximum immigrant experience (as sampled within accepted immigrants, of course).