While we're putting things to rest in the immigration discussion, I have my own pet peeve. How about a moratorium on quoting The New Colossus?

When Emma Lazarus wrote her poem in 1883, median per capita real wages had been rising for a century here, most Americans were farmers, and there were vast areas waiting for settlement and development.

None of those is the case any more. Median per capita real wages have been pretty stagnant for a generation. Less than 5% of Americans are farmers. And very, very few immigrants come here to settle the unsettled areas.

I'm in favor of increasing the number of work visas we issue every year to Mexicans enormously. But I'm also in favor of more serious border and workplace enforcement. I favor these things, not because they're “poor and huddled masses yearning to breathe free” but because they make sense to me.