If you are a German and fancy Pegida, or a Brit and fancy UKIP, or a Frenchman and enjoy marching with the National Front, it’s a reasonable guess that you don’t like immigrants. If you’re an American, the story is different. There is a lady in the harbor to welcome the legal ones and a man in the White House to roll out the welcome mat for millions of illegal ones. And there is a society that by and large until now has been successful in assimilating wave after wave of new arrivals.

Front and center next week will be efforts by Senate Republican leaders to round up the votes needed to tie to the funding of the Department of Homeland Security a provision effectively rescinding Obama’s quasi-amnesty that shields millions of illegal immigrants from deportation. If at least six Democrats have a sense of humor they might provide the Republicans with the votes they need to add to their own to get this bill passed. Then the president can veto it, forcing Republicans to choose between surrendering, or closing down the department that is charged with protecting us from terror attacks. Such a shut-down would be unthinkable in any circumstances, never mind during the current period of nervousness after the slaughter in Paris. It isn’t often that a party can voluntarily retread a path that has been the route to disaster in the past.