Weekly Standard: Walker’s Smart Play on Immigration

Andy Manis/AP Photo
Andy Manis/AP Photo

At The Weekly Standard, Jeffrey Anderson writes:

Scott Walker’s recent comments suggesting that the United States’s policy on legal immigration should be focused on what’s good for American workers — a seemingly obvious point that nevertheless has ruffled feathers — offers further evidence of the Wisconsin governor’s political savvy. When two of one’s strongest competitors (namely, Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio) share a weakness on an issue, it’s smart to draw attention to that issue by making clear there is daylight between you and them.

What’s more, every Republican presidential candidate will soon step onto the debate stage and declare that he or she is against amnesty and in favor of strengthening the border first. GOP voters won’t be credulous enough to trust these avowals, but they will be left to search for clues as to who, if anyone, is actually to be believed. Among those who sound reasonable, the candidate who is criticized by the others (and by outside pundits) for bucking the consensus, for being to the right of the others on this particular issue, is the candidate voters will trust.

In truth, immigrants’ percentage of the U.S. population is already approaching an all-time high — which is something pundits and politicians never seem to mention.  That percentage has nearly tripled — from 4.7 percent to 13.5 percent — since 1970, and it is now higher than it was in either 1880 or1920. The Census Bureau projects that, a decade from now, it will clear 15 percent for the first time in American history.

Read the entire piece.

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