The Journal had an immigration editorial yesterday (no link, I believe). It

read in part: “At 36 million and counting, there are so many Americans of

Hispanic heritage already in the U.S. that even if we stopped immigration

cold today, their share of the electorate would rise, and rapidly. That

donkey has left the barn. And that’s bad news for any party that lets itself

be perceived as hostile to migration among Hispanics…” What the Journal is

acknowledging is a dynamic that NR and John O’Sullivan have long warned

about—high levels of immigration would make it politically impossible, as a

matter of pure demographics, to restrain immigration. Now the Journal tells

us that NR was right all along. A couple of other things. The Journal says,

“The point isn’t that Republicans need to play identity politics the way

Democrats do. Hispanic voters will settle for being treated like other

Americans, but they will punish politicians who appear to be actively

hostile to their efforts to get ahead.” OK, fair enough. But how does

continued mass Hispanic immigration help an individual Hispanic “get ahead”?

If he’s low-skilled, doesn’t it actually work against his individual

economic interest, by potentially depressing his wages? High-level

immigration seems to do more to help Hispanics as a collective class by

increasing their political and social clout, in other words its helps

basically as a matter of identity politics. Finally, the Journal says of

Hispanic voting patterns, “Especially as they vote for the first time,

Hispanics are persuadable.” I may be wrong but I have always had the

impression that new Hispanic immigrants, who are generally poor and

obviously not well-assimilated, tend to vote Democratic. And that Hispanics

tend to vote GOP only as they become wealthier and are in the country

longer. But the Journal makes it sound as if it is a great boon to the

Republican cause to have new Hispanic immigrants in the voting booths.