America’s immigration mess is about to get way messier

Plus: Drone highways, green hydrogen and more. Bloomberg This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a superhighway of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Agenda - America ends [Title 42](. - The UK does a [drone project](. - Sweden has a [real estate crisis](. - Australia bets on [green hydrogen](. The Migrant Math Is Not Mathing When the clock strikes midnight this evening, everything is going to change, but not in a Y2K or Taylor Swift album release type way. [Title 42 is expiring,]( and things on the southern border are about to get infinitely more messy. For those unfamiliar with the policy, here’s a quick refresher. Back when Covid was hardcore Covid-ing, the Donald Trump administration conveniently found a way to kill two birds with one stone: Title 42. [The 1944 law]( is very vague, in the way that a noncommittal boyfriend might [leave you on read]( for 8 hours. It basically says sure, you can close the border if there’s a super-contagious disease that might upend society and wreak mass chaos. Covid fit the bill marvelously — although Republicans had been toying with the idea of deploying [the “Stephen Miller special”]( long before March of 2020. They got their way for over three years, but it’s expiring this evening, and the “health risk” that migrants pose will go *poof!* into the night. “Tens of thousands of hopeful migrants have massed at the border,” Eduardo Porter writes, and some believe that the end of Title 42 is a golden ticket into the US. This presents a huge problem for Biden, whose [campaign]( basically crowned him The Chosen One to humanely reform our immigration system. Now, “the administration is [adopting tactics that Biden himself denounced]( when they were used by Donald Trump,” Bloomberg’s editorial board writes. Although they’ve attempted to create some new pathways for easy migration — 1,000 extra appointments per day and a new monthly allotment of 30,000 two-year parole visas — Eduardo says the math is absolutely [not mathing](: “The hope that [the new legal paths opened by the US]( will end the flows of unauthorized migrants inevitably crashes against the paltry 1,000 new interview slots offered per day. Over 72 hours last weekend the border patrol caught some 27,000 people trying to enter the US unlawfully. Another 7,400 got away.” That’s like putting a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound. Republicans have responded with [a security bill]( that plans to resurrect the ghost of Trump’s border wall, the rusted pieces of which were last seen [collecting dust in Guadalupe Canyon, Arizona](. And Democrats aren’t very happy with the situation, either. [New York City]( mayor Eric Adams requested $350 million in aid to help with the influx of migrants. FEMA tossed him $30.5 million, which is pennies for a city that spends about $8 million a day to house around 40,000 asylum seekers: Biden, ever the serene optimist, is hoping that everything will just work itself out in due time — which is something you’d expect to hear from your therapist, not your president. Under Title 42, migrants who got rejected could simply turn around and try again next time, like one of those claw-crane games that tormented you as a child. Now, there’s no redos. Under [Title 8](, unauthorized migrants, some of whom are shelling out $15,000 to a smuggler, will be automatically blacklisted and effectively banned from the country for five years. But “this could go wrong in lots of ways, for the same reason that all the other walls along the US border have failed before: The set of incentives pushing migrants to the US is extremely powerful,” Eduardo notes. One such incentive is US employment, which Tyler Cowen says is a great reason to just go ahead and accept more migrants, while the appeal is still there. As declining fertility rates take hold, “the population will become smaller and smaller while taxes on the young will get higher and higher, in part to pay for the retirements and health care of the elderly,” he writes, arguing that this shifted dynamic may create a “[new world in which immigrants are courted](,” instead of shunned. As the clock strikes midnight, the world that Tyler envisions couldn’t seem further from reality. [A Sky Full of]( Drones “Spanning some 165 miles, and extending more than six miles wide and potentially hundreds of feet tall, it could be a Jetsons-esque marvel...” No, no. This quote from Dave Lee isn’t about the border wall. It’s about the UK’s project to create a “superhighway in the sky for drones.” Wait. Can we do that again, but with a little more excitement? They’re building a SUPERHIGHWAY … IN THE SKY … FOR DRONES!! It just sounds so cool. Almost like a real-life replica of [Mario Kart’s Rainbow Road](: Across the pond, they’re partnering with a drone air-traffic-control company — a thing that exists — to establish “a network of routes” that will someday connect Reading, Coventry, Oxford, Milton Keynes, Cambridge and Rugby. The whole thing is nothing short of incredible. Sure, it takes the UK [weeks to fix potholes]( but it can and it will create the world’s first expressway in the air. Dave says “the corridor is intended to eventually consist of multiple layers: Smaller drones carrying packages could move in lower airspace underneath larger drones carrying people.” If you are questioning the veracity of people-carrying drones, you would be right. They do not yet exist. But why not get ahead of the traffic jams that await us? By 2030, our British brethren expect to have 900,000 drones flying around every year, doing the work of mailmen and delivery drivers. It might wipe out “around 1.7 million diesel cars off the road” each year, which would do wonders for the environment, if not necessarily for the employment rate. Read [the whole thing](. Telltale Charts Here’s the thing about the saying “a strong economy cures all ills.” It’s not really true anymore! For years now, employment — a major barometer of the economy — “has been about as maximized as it gets,” Kathryn Edwards says. Even so, [we’re seeing many workers struggle to stay afloat](, with those in the lower quartiles lacking access to basic needs like sick leave and fair pay. “The market is powerful, but not perfect,” she writes, arguing that federal labor standards need to be upgraded in order to fill in the gaps. When reading the work of my esteemed colleagues, there are, at times, words I encounter that are above my rather remedial comprehension skills. “Samhällsbyggnadsbolaget” is one such word, and I had to Google it to make sure that I wasn’t hallucinating. Turns out, it is the actual name of one of Sweden’s most leveraged real estate firms! And it’s, uh, struggling, by the looks of this chart. Chris Hughes says [the company binged on too much debt](, and now it’s trying to dig itself out of a hole that puts the entire European property sector on thin ice. Everyone has that one friend who can show up to a themed party looking nothing short of stunning. You ask them: “Where’d you get your outfit?!” And they say: “Oh, I just threw it together using stuff in my closet!” And then you’re jealous of them and their superior closet for the rest of eternity. But you know who else is a thrifty genius? Australia. That’s right: For centuries, that country has been playing one big game of Catan using stuff in their closet, and winning. First, it was gold and sheep. Then came iron ore and coal in the 1970s. Now, David Fickling says [they’re betting on green hydrogen](. There’s just one catch, he writes: “Hydrogen is reactive, explosive stuff, making it fiendishly difficult to store and transport in its raw form.” Bonus Opinions The EPA has a [smart new way]( to deal with dirty power plants. — Liam Denning The FDA must [make Opill available]( without a prescription. — Lisa Jarvis [Credit card rewards]( can be a predatory trap. — Erin Lowry One [weird trick]( to save the US economy. — Allison Schrager In China, which is worse: Insider trading or [espionage](? — Shuli Ren A debt ceiling deal would put [Kevin McCarthy’s job]( on the line. — Jonathan Bernstein Southeast Asia’s [biggest tech]( names are bleeding cash. — Tim Culpan An American [manufacturing crackdown]( might be coming for China. — Brooke Sutherland [The bears vs. reality](, in under 99 seconds. — Kyla Scanlon ICYMI Elon Musk is [stepping down]( as Twitter CEO. Peloton had to recall [some bikes](. The FDA makes [blood donation]( more inclusive. Kickers The epic story of The [Connies](. The logistics of [Ursula’s tentacles](. [The cronut]( is turning 10. The life of a “[mountain air sommelier](." The [Chartreuse shortage]( is overhyped. Notes: Please send cronuts and feedback to Jessica Karl at jkarl9@bloomberg.net. [Sign up here]( and follow us on [Instagram](, [TikTok](, [Twitter]( and [Facebook](. Follow Us You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Bloomberg Opinion Today newsletter. If a friend forwarded you this message, [sign up here]( to get it in your inbox. [Unsubscribe]( [Bloomberg.com]( [Contact Us]( Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10022 [Ads Powered By Liveintent]( [Ad Choices](