This first thing we did as the immigration story started ripening in the Senate was go into the archive of the Wall Street Journal and call up an editorial called “In Praise of Huddled Masses.” It was issued by the nation’s most conservative newspaper on July 3, 1984, as the Congress was working on a bill known as Simpson-Mazzoli, after a Republican senator at the time, Alan Simpson, and a House Democrat, Romano Mazzoli of Kentucky.

Simpson-Mazzoli was — and is, having finally been enacted in 1986 — one of the most notorious anti-immigrant measures in American history. It introduced criminal penalties on employers who hired immigrants without papers. It turned family enterprises into the anti-immigrant police. The Wall Street Journal saw it for the anti-immigrant bill it was. The newspaper offered, at least in principle, its alternative, a constitutional amendment of five words: “There shall be open borders.”

This marks something to remember as President Obama and Congress begin to react to the memorandum of principles released yesterday by the eight senators. The real high-ground in the immigration debate — the radical, welcoming, pro-growth, pro-liberty position — has long been owned not by the Left but by the Right. It is the opening for the Republicans to look for as they scramble to exit the blind alley into which Governor Romney stumbled during the just-ended campaign.

The way this is getting retailed at the moment is that about politics and demographics. The notion seems to be that the rapid birth rates in the Hispanic and other immigrant communities means that the old conservative coalition is going to be losing its relative position. We’ve never bought into that line. This is not about demographics. It is — or ought to be — about principles of liberty and the formula for a successful economy.

Feature the first sentence of the memorandum issued by Senators McCain, Senators Schumer, McCain, Durbin, Graham, Menendez, Rubio, Bennet, and Flake. It says, “We recognize that our immigration system is broken.” We would rewrite that opening sentence as follows: “We recognize that our immigration system is protectionist.” Let the talk of border security focus on the need to ensure that security does not turn into protectionism.

The senators’ memorandum gives no recognition of the nature of the current crisis. The crisis is that net immigration is in danger of going negative, meaning fewer coming in and more are going home (self-deporting, as Governor Romney so idiotically put it). This was reported last year by Pew Research.* We don’t for one nanosecond mean to suggest that people should not be allowed to leave. But the net numbers are flashing caution.

If immigration of any stripe, legal or illegal, is causing net immigration to slow, it would be confirmation of nothing so much as the failure of our economy in the Obama era. This is a time to keep foremost in our focus the principles of political economy. Our national policy needs to encourage a growing population, expanding because of burgeoning families at home and a positive net immigration from all sources. If the GOP can get those principles properly articulated, the politics — and the demographics — will follow.

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* Update: Pew’s estimate might be out of date. The Washington Times, in a dispatch issued today, reports that the latest numbers from the United States Border Patrol suggest the flow across the southwestern border soared 9% last year. It quotes figures it says were obtained by the Associated Press and confirmed by the Times.