Migration Metastasis

Sometimes I hate when I get something right. I try to avoid pointing that out in most cases, because there's no reason to remind people who come around to my viewpoint on a matter that they changed their minds, and because people are reactionary and might reverse course if "shown up" with an I-told-you-so. Today, however, I'm not prone to an internal smile. Instead, I'm sighing in lament.

The lamentation? My fear that the Right would go beyond the "I only object to illegal immigration" assertion to a broader anti- attitude toward all* immigration. All of a sudden, my social media feed is littered with derisions of H1B visas, and lots of "we shouldn't give American jobs to foreign workers" nativism.

I won't delve into the feud between Elon Musk and Laura Loomer here, because it's a transient and schoolyard-level spat. Nor will I dip into the (currently raging at civil-war level) clash over the H1B visa program, because these are secondary to the big picture.

That big picture is immigration itself, which is at the heart of a sharp divide on the Right.

And I saw it coming.