Today’s Census news is that Hispanics now comprise 15 percent of the population of the United States, and their population growth is now not a factor of immigration but of births inside the United States — in other words, to U.S. citizens. Jeffrey Humphreys of the University of Georgia tells the Wall Street Journal, “”The base population of Hispanics already here is so large that it is virtually impossible for immigration to play as important a role in population growth as it has historically.”

Seen in this light, the effort to push the Republican party into a radically restrictionist stance is nothing short of deranged, as a practical matter. As a matter of principle, people should not be silent when they believe something dangerous and destructive is going on — but then advocates of restriction should stop trying to argue that the GOP has anything to gain politically from alienating a young and fast-growing population.