If conservatives want to conserve themselves, they need to be against all immigration--or at least all non-white immigration: My last two post have shown that, contrary to neocon nonsense, immigrants move left as they move into mainstream American society. I have, however, focused on non-white (or mixed raced) immigrants, while white immigrants have been left out of the picture. Below I show the percent of immigrants who voted for Bush in 2000 by race and by various indicators of assimilation:


Percent who voted for Bush

White
Less than high school 44.4
High school 45.0
Junior college 76.5
Bachelors 56.7
Grad school 25.0

Non-white
Less than high school 35.0
High school 43.9
Junior college 33.3
Bachelors 27.3
Grad school 33.3

White
Low-income 50.0
High-income 60.0

Non-white
Low-income 28.1
High-income 37.5

White
Low-prestige job 49.3
High-prestige job 46.9

Non-white
Low-prestige job 31.9
High-prestige job 22.8

The differences are clear. While white immigrants appear to help Republicans to some degree, non-white immigrants, regardless of the ease to which they move to America's mainstream, push the country left. As white immigrants make more money, they become more conservative. So do non-whites, but 38% of high-income non-white immigrants voting for Bush is still a big loss to Republicans.

So the lesson here to conservatives is that if you want to ever win elections in the future, you had better shut down illegal and legal immigration--at least from non-white countries. Or just maintain the status quo, and allow neocons to eventually convince the country that universal health care is actually a conservative idea. Your choice.