Ben Wattenberg has a piece up on NRO today on immigration. I worked for and with Ben for years, so all of this is very, very familiar to me. There are things I agree with and disagree with, but I’ll just make one basic point. Ben says that immigration is good for America. Without debating all of his arguments for why he thinks so, one can simply agree. But so what? Ben’s argument is generic in this sense. Save at the end of the piece, someone who favors a giant wall and exiling every illegal in America could make all of the same points Ben makes.

Then, at the end, he simply asserts that you can’t do anything about illegal immigration without demonstrating it is so. I know what Ben’s trying to do and I’m sympathetic to it. But I think he misses the point that many of those who want to get tough on illegal immigration from Mexico like America’s immigration story too. And they really dislike being told that if you like that story, you have to be blasé about millions of people sneaking into the country illegally.