We have long accepted the notion that the West depends on skilled immigration to sustain its economies and address recurring labour shortages, a narrative repeatedly reinforced by the media, academia, governments, and correlation-based studies. It’s a convenient, self-contained construct, where the problem and solution are neatly packaged into one concept to prevent people from venturing beyond its confines.
Growing up through this immigration transition, I have witnessed four generations of non-European immigrants embed themselves into my Western ecosystems, reshaping its landscape. I’ve watched suburbs transform into brown, black, or yellow. I’ve seen shops evolve into stalls, malls into street markets, steakhouses into noodle joints, flower beds into garlic patches, and pet dogs into goats. Yet, the elites march on, arrogantly assuming no one will notice, even going so far as to rescript history.
From the Industrial Revolution to the birth of modern computing, the majority of technological breakthroughs have been overwhelmingly driven by native European innovators. Acknowledging this does not negate contributions from other races but does challenge the narrative that innovation is equally distributed across all cultures. And therein lies the issue, the prioritisation of ‘skilled’ immigration risks diluting the intellectual resources of developed nations while perpetuating the false narrative that credits technological progress to diversity.
Even if we accept the conclusions of these correlational studies at face value, that skilled immigration is associated with increased innovation in the West, it is worth interrogating what kind of innovation is actually being measured. The overwhelming majority of these studies rely heavily on patent counts as their primary metric. But does filing a patent for a minor technical tweak, for instance, moving the closure of a zipper from one side to the other, truly constitute meaningful innovation, or is it merely a reworking of pre-existing ideas within a narrowly defined legal framework? And who’s to say that the studies’ report, say, a 4% increase in innovation in a Western multicultural segment, that in a more homogeneous society the increase wouldn’t have been 6%, 8%, 10%, or even 2%? In this context, the 4% figure is largely meaningless. If our measures of progress are so granular and procedural, then an apparent rise in innovation may mask stagnation in genuinely groundbreaking or transformative technological advances.
This concern becomes even more pressing when set against the backdrop of declining academic standards, literacy, and numeracy across the West. PISA and OECD data show that both students and adults are performing more poorly in reading, math, and problem-solving than in previous decades, suggesting that the intellectual foundation necessary for truly original innovation is weakening even as patent counts rise.
If the evidence is so inconclusive, then why do Western governments permit, even encourage, the immigration of non-Western workers who, as a group, may be retarding technological progress? The answer appears to lie more in broader strategic considerations than in the purported economic or innovation gaps.
To understand the schemes at play, certain concepts must first be clarified, one of which is the technocrats’ leverage. In a globalised economy, multinational corporations and influential business leaders wield extraordinary power over national economies. If Western nations were to restrict immigration, elites could, and have, relocated operations to countries offering cheaper labour and fewer regulatory constraints, using global mobility to maintain strategic advantage.
The recent Musk-H1B controversy on X seems to fit squarely within this framework. Western governments permit ‘skilled migrants’ to enter our countries to effectively devalue high-paying roles as leverage to dissuade industries from relocating abroad. Simultaneously, these opportunities help our nations strengthen their alliances by assisting in building a technically skilled ethnic workforces, thereby alleviating some of the pressure caused by their nation’s limited economic resources.
Zooming in, however, if one looks past this layer, a pool of temporary immigrants could serve as fertile ground for intelligence agencies to recruit, train and exert influence and control over these workers and students. It’s not unreasonable to deduce that such agencies test, evaluate, and train select individuals from these pools. Upon their return to their respective native countries, these individuals can then fulfil technical roles within intelligence operations, address shared security concerns, and maintain unofficial channels of communication between nations. A readymade network of spies in an ‘ally’ country.
Historically, intelligence agencies have consistently recruited foreign-born individuals, migrants, and temporary workers for technical, linguistic, or cultural expertise, most famously exemplified by the Ritchie Boys in WWII. Such cases establish a credible precedent: when state actors require specialised skills that are scarce domestically, immigrants naturally become prime candidates for recruitment. In today’s context, waves of ‘skilled’ migrants, international students, and temporary workers provide a large, concentrated pool of technically trained individuals who are often socially or legally vulnerable, making them particularly susceptible to influence or recruitment. While there is no public evidence of a fully systematic, global program, the structural incentives are clear: intelligence agencies benefit from cultivating technical and cultural assets within these communities, whether for domestic security, allied cooperation, or strategic leverage abroad. This convergence of historical precedent, structural logic, and observable patterns makes the hypothesis that skilled migrants could serve as covert assets plausible and worthy of serious consideration.
Such programmes would facilitate alliance building through dependency, but also enables spying with minimal presence, as there must always be a return on investment for hosting such programmes. A country like India, burdened by systemic inefficiencies and lack of funds, may readily embrace this setup, even at the risk of employing individuals whose loyalties may align more closely with American interests than their own.
However, after decades of this mutually beneficial arrangement, the oligarchs and technocrats have at their disposal fully trained technical workforces in numerous countries, ready for rehiring at a substantially lower cost. This allows them to leverage their power to hold Western governments hostage, using the threat of relocating operations overseas if their demands are not met.
It stands to reason that strategic intelligence based counter to this behavioural and technological prediction would make ways to gradually infiltrate and reshape the IT industry. Over time, intelligence agencies may position themselves so deeply within the digital and technological framework that they reduce their reliance on direct funding and instead guide development from within. In exchange, these majority owners enjoy unchallenged market niches and various local and global favours, while the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood covertly steer the trajectory of humanity. A neatly tiered ecosystem: corporate profit at the top, geopolitical leverage beneath it, and at the very base, the labour and intellectual capital of entire Western populations underwriting the architecture of control.
If we assume that much of this analysis is even approximately correct, then it naturally follows that foreign nations would not passively accept such asymmetric intelligence harvesting. Any country with a functioning strategic mind would respond in kind by embedding its own operatives within Western nations, not through dramatic Cold War theatrics, but through the quiet, deniable mechanism of permanent migration. A steady stream of technically trained individuals, professionals, students, and entrepreneurs offers the perfect cover for long-term placement. Unlike temporary workers who eventually return home, permanent residents and citizens gain deeper access: to infrastructure, institutions, defence contracts, research labs, social networks, voting blocs and political ecosystems. Their loyalties may remain dual, or strategically fluid, and their integration into Western systems anchored in bonded communities gives their home nations a slow burning but potent form of intelligence leverage. In such a landscape, migration becomes not merely a demographic or economic tool, but ac battlefield where every visa category doubles as a potential intelligence vector.
Historically, such infiltration has been referred to as a “fifth column” to describe internal actors working in support of an external enemy. Perhaps this is what Nigel Farage was alluding to when he invoked the concept in his political commentary, framing certain groups as potential internal threats undermining national cohesion. If a public figure like Farage can recognise and openly gesture toward this dynamic, then it stands to reason that intelligence services and governments are not only aware of the growing danger but have already factored it into their geopolitical calculations. They may accept, even facilitate, a degree of such an internal risk as an unavoidable trade‑off for maintaining access and leverage across the entire spectrum of undeveloped nations. In this model, infiltration is not just tolerated but strategically priced in, a manageable hazard exchanged for global reach, informal influence, and quiet compliance from weaker states.
As we navigate the complexities of AI, robotics, dysgenics, greed, and a class of individuals or groups willing to use unethical psychological tactics and strategies to control public belief, we face hard choices. Western societies must safeguard their intellectual and technological foundations from the subtle encroachments of global technocrats and dependent alliances. Preserving the integrity of innovation networks, maintaining independent strategic capabilities, and scrutinising the incentives behind migration and industry policies are not just matters of policy, they are essential to ensuring that the future is shaped by those who inherit it, not those who profit from it.
Annabelle Fearn