I think the evidence that EA has “abandoned” open borders is relatively weak, it looks more like that it was never a high priority, and still isn’t.
There has been interest in labour mobility, and in 2024 and 2025 Open Phil funded related areas − 1, 2, 3. But the tag has changed and it now falls under global health, innovation or abundance.
I’m not sure forum posts are relevant when it’s just 1-2 posts a year, and suggest ongoing limited engagement.
The tag has not changed, they have explicitly closed it (see their site) and I don’t think those three links count as examples since it’s not targeted at reform (nor general immigration), but even if they did, it’s still much lower than it used to be. They never told us why they closed it (which is annoying in itself) but the writing was already on the wall a year earlier with them saying:
We have never had a clear theory of how to change the political economy to be supportive of substantially larger immigration flows, which is what would be necessary to achieve the global poverty improvements that motivate our interest in this issue. Accordingly, our recent spending has been lower than in macro or land use reform.
The open borders website wrote a post tracking the downturn, e.g. writing under the section “Evidence that Open Philanthropy is reducing its involvement in and commitments to migration policy”:
The grants database includes only one grant in 2021 [...] and otherwise no other grants in 2020. Open Philanthropy has been using exit grants as well as reducing levels of commitment even for grantees that they are continuing to support.
Speaking of the site. They posted every month from 2013 through 2015, only some months between 2016 and 2021, twice in 2022, zero times in 2023, once in 2024, and zero times in 2025. A clear sign that its engagement is going down (despite the number of EAs increasing over the years).
I think the evidence that EA has “abandoned” open borders is relatively weak, it looks more like that it was never a high priority, and still isn’t.
There has been interest in labour mobility, and in 2024 and 2025 Open Phil funded related areas − 1, 2, 3. But the tag has changed and it now falls under global health, innovation or abundance.
I’m not sure forum posts are relevant when it’s just 1-2 posts a year, and suggest ongoing limited engagement.
The tag has not changed, they have explicitly closed it (see their site) and I don’t think those three links count as examples since it’s not targeted at reform (nor general immigration), but even if they did, it’s still much lower than it used to be. They never told us why they closed it (which is annoying in itself) but the writing was already on the wall a year earlier with them saying:
The open borders website wrote a post tracking the downturn, e.g. writing under the section “Evidence that Open Philanthropy is reducing its involvement in and commitments to migration policy”:
Speaking of the site. They posted every month from 2013 through 2015, only some months between 2016 and 2021, twice in 2022, zero times in 2023, once in 2024, and zero times in 2025. A clear sign that its engagement is going down (despite the number of EAs increasing over the years).