Or rather, enough members of the public believe in the lumb-of-labour fallacy to make these kinds of policies fly.

... and the someone in the country is more valuable than the someone outside the country, because xenophobia.

What? No. Because it's the whole point of a government to take care of its citizens. American gov takes care of Americans, Brazillian gov takes care of Brazillians.

and the Iraqi government... no, forget it.