It’s one thing to make an argument about immigrants coming into this country illegally, or even an argument about the fiscal consequences of mass immigration coupled with a massive welfare state. But the idea that policymakers should protect current American workers from competition from immigrants who come here legally and are willing and eager to work hard is a perversion of American ideals and a recipe for decline.

Walker himself once understood this.

“If people want to come here and work hard and benefit, I don’t care whether they come from Mexico or Ireland or Germany or Canada or South Africa or anywhere else,” Walker said less than two years ago. “I want them here.”

If Walker now believes that American workers should be protected from competition, why stop with immigration? By that logic, why support free trade?