David Brooks (thanks A.M.)

today has a very clear-minded take on the immigration debate. Paul has given economic reasons for their value, but Brooks takes the argument directly to those most implacably opposed to immigration: social conservatives.

My first argument is that the exclusionists are wrong when they say the current wave of immigration is tearing our social fabric. The facts show that the recent rise in immigration hasn't been accompanied by social breakdown, but by social repair. As immigration has surged, violent crime has fallen by 57 percent. Teen pregnancies and abortion rates have declined by a third. Teenagers are having fewer sexual partners and losing their virginity later. Teen suicide rates have dropped. The divorce rate for young people is on the way down.

[...] My second argument is that the immigrants themselves are like a booster shot of traditional morality injected into the body politic. [...] This is evident in everything from divorce rates (which are low, given immigrants' socioeconomic status) to their fertility rates (which are high) and even the way they shop.

Brooks then goes on to give a few of the family-values kind of money-spending immigrants tend to do. Of course it is not terribly surprising that people with little disposable income spend what they have on family necessities. The government's Consumer Expenditure Survey and an outfit called Simmons Research are his sources on this. Someone want to look those up?

This isn't alien behavior. It's admirable behavior, the antidote to the excessive individualism that social conservatives decry.

He concludes with an observation I made about 20 years ago to an Texan friend of mine (whom I hope joins us):

[...] Women who have recently arrived from Mexico have bigger, healthier babies than more affluent non-Hispanic white natives. That's because strong family and social networks support these pregnant women, reminding them what to eat and do. But the longer they stay, and the more assimilated they become, the more bad habits they acquire and the more problems their subsequent babies have.

Something suspicious here: Why "...than more affluent non-Hispanic white natives"?

Please ask yourself this: As we contemplate America's moral fiber, do the real threats come from immigrants, or are some people merely blaming them for sins that are already here?

My observation to the Texas guy went something like this: Yeah the current stock of immigrants aren't the same as the group that came with my grandfather, fleeing murderous political banditry and getting here with some money, a violin, and some Bach on sheetmusic. But the America they came to didn't have rap and abortion and any number of other corruptions either.

His response? "Blame the victim!"

There is another angle of interest here. The reason A.M. sent me this is because he is European and is worried as hell about the Eurabia problem. It would be fascinating to see corresponding data for recent immigrants to Europe and to try to analyze the differences I bet there are.