Why immigration is a big deal to conservatives

*You may have been asking yourself this same question. One answer is to brand immigration opponents as nativist – there’s a history of intolerance tied to extreme conservatism that’s hard to ignore. This piece sets that idea aside for the moment and considers economy, geography, demographics, partisan politics and a feeling of isolation as reasons. What do you think? Agree, no? VL

By Ramesh Ponnuru, The Dallas Morning News

Nikki Haley, the governor of South Carolina, is the latest Republican to learn how important immigration has become to conservatives. In her response to the State of the Union address, she argued both that immigrants should be made to feel welcome and that we have to maintain control of our immigration policy. For these comments, she was denounced in some quarters as a moderate who had declared war on her own party’s strongest supporters. Both the speech and the reaction offer more evidence that immigration control is becoming a more important, and defining, issue for conservatives.

Why the issue has become central is less clear. It’s not because the problem of illegal immigration is growing; it has fallen in recent years. But that decline has coincided with at least seven factors that have raised the political importance of immigration for the right.

Click HERE to read the full list.