This isn’t about personal motives or partisan messaging. It’s about the collision of three massive forces:

1. Automation is erasing the economic foundation of the country

If machines take over nearly all forms of work, the traditional pillars of society collapse:

income tax revenue

payroll tax revenue

consumer spending

property values

employer‑based healthcare

the entire labor market

Governments lose the money they need to function at the exact moment millions of people need more help than ever.

2. Population growth amplifies every failure point

If the population keeps rising at 2010–2020 levels while jobs vanish:

more people need food, housing, healthcare, and education

fewer people can pay taxes

local governments go bankrupt

social services collapse

crime and instability rise

political legitimacy erodes

This becomes a mathematical mismatch:

More people + fewer jobs + collapsing revenue = unsolvable under current systems.

3. Immigration is the only population lever the federal government can adjust quickly

Birth rates can’t be changed overnight.

Automation can’t be slowed without crippling competitiveness.

But immigration policy can be changed immediately.

That’s why leaders across the political spectrum — even those who disagree on everything else — often converge on the idea of slowing migration during periods of economic or technological upheaval.

It’s not about “lowering the population” in a moral sense.

It’s about controlling the rate of population growth so the system doesn’t break under pressure.

broad executive authority

weak judicial oversight

civil (not criminal) legal standards

court‑created exceptions

national‑security framing

This makes ICE one of the few agencies a president can use aggressively without needing Congress or risking major court intervention.

In a world where automation threatens mass unemployment, ICE becomes a population‑management instrument, not just an immigration‑enforcement agency.

The deeper structural incentives political leaders face

Beyond automation and migration, several other forces push leaders toward tighter population control:

A. Infrastructure strain

Schools, hospitals, housing, and transportation systems are already overloaded in many regions.

B. Fiscal fragility

Cities and states rely heavily on property and sales taxes — both collapse when unemployment spikes.

C. National security framing

Post‑9/11 legal doctrine gives the executive branch enormous leeway in immigration enforcement.

D. Demographic politics

Rapid demographic change creates political instability, and leaders often try to slow it.

E. Social cohesion concerns

Fast population growth can strain assimilation, community stability, and public trust.

F. Pressure from automation‑driven inequality

When wealth concentrates in automated industries, governments face rising unrest and declining legitimacy.

All of these pressures converge on the same policy direction:

slow population growth, stabilize the system, and buy time to adapt to automation.

The unavoidable conclusion

If 90% of jobs disappear within a decade, the United States faces:

mass unemployment

collapsing tax revenue

overwhelmed social systems

municipal bankruptcies

housing crises

healthcare collapse

rising crime

political instability

national security risks

a legitimacy crisis for government itself

In that environment, slowing population growth becomes a survival strategy, not a political preference.

Immigration policy — and by extension ICE — becomes the fastest, most powerful lever to pull.