> It is very difficult to overstate the extent to which "government people" live in a bubble.
I completely agree and I would add that a large part of that bubble - particularly for many military/intelligence folk - is the 'them and us' or perhaps more accurately 'them vs us' paradigm. People in these professions tend to see the world in a very black and white view. In my country at least, some of our intelligence agencies have a long history of being staffed by people with a fairly fundamental religious background. So when this kind of black and white, "them vs us", religious or quasi-religious (and quite likely racist) view is applied to national security, matters of immigration and so on, the result is pretty predictable IMO. Many of these people truly live in a different world than I do, one that harks back all the way to attitudes that were forged during the events of WWII and before.
Not to say that everyone involved on a government's side is blinded by dogma, but I believe enough of them are (in certain spheres) to keep the culture alive.