Lots of VERY interesting posts on the differences between California and

Texas in attitudes to illegal immigration. I am now convinced, at any rate,

that the difference is real. (The last word in my previous post should have

been “Texas,” not “Mexico,” by the way. Freudian slip.)

Several readers believe that the actual Mexicans coming in are different in

the two places, with the Texas-Mexicans much more conservative and

assimilationist, the California ones much more inclined to buy into the

Aztlan/La Raza race-grievance racket, much less inclined to assimilate, or

even to bother learning English.

If this is right it raises the uncomfortable question: Which type of

illegal immigrant is more representative, country-wide? Is California the

anomaly, or Texas? If Texas is the anomaly, and if the background to Bush’s

proposal is the Texas experience, then he is attempting to set national

policy based on the experience of an unrepresentative state.

A reader from Virginia said this more forcefully at the end of a long and

thoughtful e-mail:

“I left California for Virginia because of illegal immigration, and there

are millions like me. It turned California from a moderate state with

forward thinking policies into a third world hellhole run by crazy leftists

(and I mean CRAZY — Barney Frank is quite literally a centrist Dem by

California standards). Bush’s policies are informed by his experience with

Texan Hispanics. He needs to take a good hard look at California, because

that’s what his proposals will turn the country into.”