On a panel this morning devoted to questions of national identity, Linda Chavez argued that popular anxiety about immigration reflects the success of restrictionist talk-radio hosts at whipping up issues rather than any pre-existing discontent. She notes, for example, that immigration levels have dropped over the last decade while the concerns have risen.

But the reason restrictionists were talking about this issue more in 2006 than in 2002, even though immigration levels had dropped, is that the Bush administration had decided to push through “comprehensive immigration reform.” The restrictionists didn’t conjure this issue out of nothing.

One enduring peculiarity of this debate is that at the end of the day, it is the relatively open-borders side of it that is happiest with the status quo, and yet that side also started this argument in the first place. I am not surprised to see that Wall Street Journal take the position that no immigration deal would be better than a tough one; I just wonder what took it so long.