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RECENTLY I MET BEN WATTENBERG at a Washington function and asked him what he thought of the claims that I hear from some on the right, that the illegals will end up transforming the U.S. into Mexico North. He thought it at least as likely that we will end up Americanizing Mexico. He mentioned the growing numbers of Americans moving south (it is possible for foreigners to own property in Mexico, even beachfront property, but they need to follow certain procedures). Perhaps as many as a million Americans live in Mexico today. Meanwhile, Wattenberg pointed out, the fertility rate in Mexico has plunged to replacement levels-possibly below it. Fertility rates in Mexico and the U.S. may now be about the same.

Wattenberg, an AEI fellow, is the author of many books, including The Birth Dearth (1995) and Fewer (2004), the latter subtitled "How the New Demography of Depopulation Will Shape Our Future." For years he has resisted the Ehrlichian gloom about exploding populations, and has drawn much needed attention to population decline. Nonetheless, Wattenberg's claim (in Fewer) that Europe is losing about 700,000 people a year now looks exaggerated; but for a reason that is not at all reassuring. Lots of immigrants, many of them from Islamic countries in North Africa and Asia, have been flooding into Europe since he wrote his book. These immigrants have more children, too, which is why the apparent revival of fertility rates in countries like France and Britain is equally disquieting. We only have to think of the European situation today to realize how relatively minor (or non-existent) is our supposed Latino immigration problem here.

Anyway, the flood of job-seeking Mexicans into the U.S. will not continue indefinitely; maybe for no more than another decade. So border enforcement may well be increasing at a time when the need for it is declining. And if Mexico moves in a more capitalist direction, as is all-too-slowly happening, then the demand for labor south of the border could soar.

SOMETIMES I THINK the real dividing line in this debate is between those who think that the strong performance of the U.S. economy is of major importance, as I do, and those who either don't think that way, or who don't understand what an important contribution immigrants make to the economy. The numbers are amazing. According to Gordon H. Hanson of UC San Diego, the U.S. economy "absorbs around 300,000 new illegal laborers each year," building houses, harvesting crops, manning assembly lines, gardening, cleaning homes. They account for "nearly 30 percent of U.S. labor with less than a high-school education."

At the same time, almost 30 percent of the Mexican workforce is now in the United States, according to Steve Forbes. By the way, I wish some news organization would explain why Mexico is unable to create jobs for its own people. Workers do prefer to work in their own country, after all. (Mary Anastasia O'Grady of the Wall Street Journal's editorial page, who says that taxes in Mexico are too high, among other major problems, seems to have an exclusive on the subject. How about someone from the Journal's famously "independent" newsroom taking a look at so newsworthy a topic?)

My sense is that ending the contribution of the illegals to the U.S. economy would have an effect comparable to that of a major tax increase. Possibly there would be a real economic contraction. Without an expanding, dynamic economy, America would soon be in a great mess. Far from having removed a source of tension, we would find that interest-group rivalries had become far more intense.

One of the main advocates of the idea that the economic contribution of immigrants is not that important is Peter Brimelow, the author of Alien Nation (1995) and like me an immigrant from Britain -- a Britain that is no longer Great. His book has many good things in it, and it belongs on the shelf of anyone interested not just in the immigration debate but in the American future.

Ultimately, my impression is that he is too preoccupied with the issue of America's ethnic and racial make-up. All I can say is that it would be nice if whites were reproducing themselves. But they don't seem to be, anywhere in the world that I know of. Brimelow and I hardly see eye to eye on immigration. But one thing I do admire is the intensity that he brings to the issue. He well illustrates my point that immigrants often care passionately about the future of America; more so, I dare say, than a good many of the native-born.

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