Nativist nimrods like Texas Bo French reject the immigrants we all should welcome

The other day Bo French — a Texas Republican candidate for a powerful statewide office that regulates the oil and gas industry — posted a picture that made him furious.It showed about a crowd of University of Texas undergraduates, all apparently Indian-American, wildly cheering the Longhorns’ epic 20-point fourth-quarter comeback against top-ranked Ohio State.“I heard UT graduation this year looked like this,” French wrote.“I didn’t believe it.

The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined.”“I weep for the families in Texas who can’t get into UT because they prioritize foreigners over Texans,” he added.Many on the “New Right” flocked to social media to defend French.They shouldn’t have.First off, UT-Austin’s undergrad student body is made up of over 80% Texas residents, significantly higher than the national average for state schools.Roughly 10% of students are from outside the state, and foreign students comprise around 4% of the latest freshman class, around the national average.Of course, there’s no way French could determine whether the cheering students were Texans or foreigners based on how they “looked.”What he meant by “Texan” was “white.” Every other part of his complaint is a distraction.But it’s true that the Indian-origin population of the University of Texas is “overrepresented.”That’s because Texas grants automatic admission to the top 5% of each Texas high school’s graduating class, and Indian-Americans excel at academics.We can have a meritocratic country that rewards the brightest and hardest working — or we can have a country where bean-counters reward people according to skin color.It seems increasingly clear that a growing contingent of the new right, like the identitarians of the left, craves its own affirmative action. Yes, it’s every nation’s prerogative to set immigration policy limits, whether it’s how many people or from where.Concerns over importing too many immi...