A pilot program in the UK found that *supporting women asylum seekers in the community … improve[d] their well being at half the cost of [jailing] them.*

Ministers were not impressed, though. Perhaps because it contradicted their plans for a "hostile environment". The UK is already planning more immigration prisons.

Any one country which is so helpful to immigrants is likely to get far too many immigrants. But if many countries do it, it may be acceptable for all of them.