The Washington Post has a front page story on how the debates about immigrants are unchanging in American history. Ezra Klein picks up on the piece and re-peddles the argument that there’s no real difference between Mexicans and Italians. But there are real differences and they do not — as Klein suggests — depend on critics believing Mexicans are “deviant.” The first difference is that we never shared a 2,000 mile long border with Germany, Italy or Ireland. A second is that we did not have a generous welfare state when those immigrants came here. A third is that Germans, Italian and Irish ideologues never dreamed of claiming that American soil rightly belonged to their nation. I can think of others, but I think those will do for now. I’m not arguing for a specific policy by mentioning these facts, but I think it’s silly for people to pretend the issue with Mexican Americans is perfectly analogous to previous eras. There are important similarities and there are important differences.