Effective altruists say that, if you devote your time and resources to helping others, you ought to do the most good that you can. You should rely on rigorous evidence to identify the most effective interventions and donate your time and money to them.

It sounds somewhat grandiose to say it, but I’m an effective altruist. Although I’m not a utilitarian, I do think you ought to try to help others in an effective way.

I’m also a partisan for more open borders. Immigration restrictions are, on my view, a monstrous injustice. Even if it turns out that 100% open borders are a bad idea for some reason, existent immigration restrictions are a prime example of man’s inhumanity to man.

But is there a way of uniting my open borders advocacy with effective altruism? Can we be effective altruists for open borders?

At first blush, there’s good reason to doubt whether effective altruists should prioritize immigration. Take the GiveWell rankings. None of the top charities have anything to do with international migration. Most of them involve deworming, anti-malaria nets, and giving directly. The closest match is No Lean Season, which gives people in rural Bangladesh subsidized loans to migrate to cities where they can earn higher wages. It looks like a great charity with strong research on its side. It’s just not what I’m looking for. A quick scan of the Open Philanthropy Project’s suggestions for individual donors and The Life You Can Save’s recommendations comes up with little as well, with one possible exception.

What explains why there seem to be few effective ways of promoting international mobility? The problem is that international mobility is low because of political constraints. Governments are what crush the dreams of most would-be migrants. To increase international mobility, we would need to change government policy. And, in my estimation, effective altruism counsels against political activism.

Here’s why. It’s not clear that any amount of my money and time would make the slightest dent in government policy. Lobbying legislators is often a waste of money and that’s probably why corporations spend so little on it. Also, let’s be real here: pushing for more immigration is the worst nightmare of even the most idealistic politicians. Immigration has, surprisingly, gotten more popular in the United States. Yet a majority is still in favor of either the status quo or more restrictions. The prospect of moving policy in a more enlightened direction looks bleak in our populist age.

In contrast, giving people anti-malarial bed nets doesn’t face the same political constraints. You don’t normally need to change public policy to help more people get dewormed (of course, public policy changes could help too). On top of that, you can conduct rigorous research on the effectiveness of bed nets and deworming (still hard though). Can you run a randomized controlled trial for pro-immigration political activism? My guess is that it’s going to be much harder to find good evidence on the effectiveness of political advocacy in general, much less pro-immigration activism. And, in the absence of solid research on your side, it’s the easiest thing in the world to be deceived about how much good you’re doing.

Critics often argue that effective altruism focuses on small-scale problems that can be rigorously studied and ignores big structural injustices that require political solutions. I say that the critics are right, but that’s a problem with reality, not effective altruism. I want to know what I can do as an individual to promote open borders. The harsh truth may be: not much.

Lest this sound too despairing, I plan to write about possible interventions for more open borders in a future post. And I’d of course be interested to see whether commentators have any good ideas.

Update: Since writing this, I’ve come across this informative post by Alexander Berger at the Open Philanthropy Institute. It includes some great ideas, especially in these notes from a workshop at the Center for Global Development.