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By George Will

Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” is a gooey confection of seasonal sentiment. It also is an economic manifesto that Dickens hoped would hit with “twenty thousand times the force” of a political tract. It concerned a 19th-century debate that is pertinent to today’s argument about immigration.

Last week, a disagreement between two conservative think tanks erupted when the Heritage Foundation excoriated the immigration reform proposed by a bipartisan group of eight senators. Heritage’s analysis argues that making 11 million illegal immigrants eligible, more than a decade from now, for welfare state entitlements would have net costs (benefits received minus taxes paid) of $6.3 trillion over the next 50 years.

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Will is a columnist with the Washington Post Writers Group.

by John Freivalds

In our nation’s history, immigrants have never been totally welcome. This goes against the common belief that the Statue of Liberty guarding New York harbor has always welcomed all with the words engraved on its pedestal: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

After all these inspiring words, where shall we begin? How about with saintly portrayed Founding Father Benjamin Franklin, who warned that Germans are too stupid to learn English and, therefore, represent a political threat to America. He adds, “French, Russians and Swedes are generally of what we call a swarthy complexion, as are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted who with the English make up the principal Body of White People on the face of the Earth . . . . Why should we in the sight of superior beings darken its people? . . . But perhaps I am particular to the Complexion of my Country for such kind of Partiality of natural to Mankind.”

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Freivalds runs an international communications firm in Lexington.

By Esther Cepeda

Last week, a federal judge in California ordered immigration courts in three states to provide legal representation for immigrants with mental disabilities who are in detention or facing deportation.

This happened the day after federal immigration officials issued a new policy that would effectively expand that ruling, making government-paid legal representation available to people with mental disabilities in immigration courts in all states.

This is a common-sense move to provide protection to the most vulnerable of a class of people — immigrants facing deportation — who don’t have the right to a lawyer if they can’t afford one.

Now that such an important precedent has been set, it is imperative that the government move quickly to ensure that minors get similar protections.

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Cepeda is a columnist with the Washington Post Writers Group.

By Sandra A. Cook

Immigration reform, in some capacity, is on the horizon. People across Virginia have been challenging Congress to make this change for many years. We’ve written letters, called and held demonstrations in the streets that brought thousands of people out in support of a comprehensive plan that includes a clear path to citizenship. Some of our leaders are listening; Rep. Bob Goodlatte is not.

Many undocumented immigrants risked their lives coming to the United States in order to create a better opportunity for their families. Most of us can relate to the principle of wanting to do what is best for our family and provide our children with opportunities we never had.

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Cook is chairwoman for Virginia Organizing, a nonpartisan statewide grassroots organization dedicated to creating a more just Virginia.

As chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Bob Goodlatte has a chance to be a leader in the search for a bipartisan solution.

Many Republicans have tended to view immigration as an amalgam of 11 million problems that can be parsed into subcategories and tinkered with individually without thought to the larger issue.

The piecemeal approach has failed to generate real solutions for any portion of the whole, be it undocumented immigrants with long-term ties to the country, migrant farm workers or highly-skilled professionals on waiting lists for green cards.

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By Esther Cepeda

What do you do when you get trapped in a stereotype that doesn’t apply — or just plain hurts?

This is not a trivial question. As Hispanics start populating academia, newsrooms, boardrooms and courtrooms across the country, they face the tricky terrain of interacting with people who have different backgrounds and upbringings. And sometimes those folks say the craziest things.

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Cepeda is a columnist with the Washington Post Writers Group.

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The 2012 election created an opening for a bipartisan compromise on immigration. Congress should not let the Boston bombing distract from that goal.

The Senate should not let shock waves from the Boston Marathon bombings derail comprehensive immigration reform.

News that the alleged bombers were a pair of ethnic Chechen immigrants — both legal, and one a naturalized citizen — inspired a conservative bid to stall the bipartisan reform bill in the Senate Judiciary Committee, where it is scheduled to be debated through May. That’s the appropriate forum for offering amendments.

Congress should not squander the momentum generated by the Grand Old Party’s small-d democratic lesson from November: Win some of the growing Hispanic vote, or die.

The election created political space to work out a bipartisan compromise on a heretofore intractable deal-breaker: a pathway to citizenship for immigrants already in the country illegally. Republicans once opposed to anything resembling amnesty are showing signs of reason.

The Senate bill is just the start of a long fight, of course. An ad hoc, bipartisan committee is working on its own proposal in the House, but the fate of that effort is even less clear.

Virginia 6th District Rep. Bob Goodlatte heads the House Judiciary Committee, which continues working on piecemeal legislation to address narrower issues, such as expanding the guest worker program.

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By ESTHER J. CEPEDA

I love Mexico Barbie’s Chihuahua.

There, I’ve said it. Let the Latino community slam me for lacking cultural sensitivity if it will, but I’m sticking to my pistolas on this one.

The furor over Mexico Barbie came to a head last week when a $30 doll that had been released in June 2012 became the subject of news stories and chatter on social media networks for perpetuating offensive stereotypes.

Accusations of cultural insensitivity included outrage because Mexico Barbie comes with a passport and therefore implies that the inanimate piece of plastic is not living in the United States illegally. Journalist Laura Martinez was widely quoted: “Play with your Barbie Mexicana and don’t even think of calling her indocumentada.”

Chuckle-worthy, yes, but there are two significant issues at play here:

First is that when Hispanics freak out over something as innocuous as a toy that was treated with every bit the same amount of cultural sensitivity as the rest of the dolls in a collection — all of Mattel’s “Dolls of the World” sport traditional costumes, tote an animal or other symbol of their country, and come with stickers and a passport — we look irrational and humorless.

The second is that being seen as overly sensitive is the least of our problems — Latinos in the United States have deadly serious issues with our image.

According to a spring 2012 online survey for the Latino Donor Collaborative, a Hispanic image advocacy organization, the research and communications firm Hill+Knowlton Strategies found that most non-Latino Americans have highly skewed perceptions of U.S. Hispanics.

Three-quarters of the non-Latinos surveyed overestimated the proportion of the Hispanic population who reside here illegally. A third believed that over half of all Latinos are in the U.S. illegally (the real percentage is about 18, according to the Pew Hispanic Center). More than 80 percent of non-Latino respondents associated Latinos with not having learned to speak English and nearly 80 percent associated Hispanics with crime and gang violence.

Traditional offline research has found much the same. Last fall the National Hispanic Media Coalition and the polling firm Latino Decisions found that more than 30 percent of non-Hispanics believe a majority of Hispanics are here illegally.

This same study found that 51 percent of non-Latinos think “welfare recipient” describes Latinos “very” or “somewhat” well, 50 percent think of Hispanics as “less educated” and 44 percent believe Hispanics “refuse to learn English.” (According to the Pew Hispanic Center, 65 percent of all U.S. Hispanics age 5 and older either speak only English at home or speak English very well.)

Living under those circumstances, it’s difficult not to be annoyed at those who would stir outrage over a doll. It’s not a big deal that a company is hoping to make profits by selling impressionable young children on the idea that Mexicans have both brightly colored clothing and official passports that entitle them to travel the world freely.

Can Hispanics in the U.S. just please focus on the truly important issues before us — our reputations, low education-attainment levels and poor health for starters? Must we waste time worrying about the accessories of a doll representing another country?

And while we’re at it, let’s get over ourselves a little. Could it really be such an affront to the dignity of Mexicanos all over the world to imply that the Chihuahua is their country’s national dog?

Seriously: Mexicans love Chihuahuas. I didn’t say all Mexicans, but more of them than any other ethnic group I can think of. I’ve had countless in my family and the two sitting on my couch were highly offended to hear that this petty Mexican Barbie kerfuffle has brought into question the place of honor that the proud Chihuahua holds in the hearts of the Mexican people.

And I hate to be the one to break it to all the evolved, pan-American “New Generation Latinos” out there, but millions of other Hispanics whose families hail from all over Latin America love Chihuahuas, too.

Mexicans tend to also love tacos and mariachi music. Such a broad generalization may be highly offensive to some, but the reality of life is that while no rule of thumb accounts for all instances, some stereotypes are true. We can either embrace them and share our affinities with others or be the humorless clod who won’t be invited on the next Chipotle lunch run.

Cepeda is a columnist with the Washington Post Writers Group.

By Evan Nicely

Two words that have long been a part of rhetoric among citizens and journalists in the United States have finally faced serious opposition. The Associated Press has now deemed the term “illegal immigrant” improper and removed the term from its stylebook.

I agree with the AP’s change because of what it is as an organization and what it stands for, but I’m worried. AP can change the phrase, but can it do so without removing the truth of the situation? You have to reference that the action these immigrants have taken is illegal, and the AP has to find a common term or word to emulate that point.

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Nicely is a junior at James Madison University. He is from Vinton.

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George Packer, who has spent much of his career covering foreign conflicts in Iraq and Sierre Leone for The New Yorker, turns his attention to domestic trends in his most recent commentary for the magazine.

On two key fronts, he notes, liberals are making substantial gains in public opinion.

Gay marriage: Polls show a majority of Americans now support same-sex marriage. (Virginians are evenly split on the issue, although that’s still a notable change after state voters seven years ago amended the state constitution to not only ban same-sex marriage and civil unions but to strip gay Virginians and their partners of any recognition or rights.)

Immigration: Between 2006 and 2011, Gallup polls found that more Americans wanted to stop illegal immigrants from entering the U.S. than wanted to offer a path to citizenship for those always living here. Last year, the balance shifted in favor of legalization. A Pew poll last month showed more than two-thirds of respondents favored reforms to help undocumented workers obtain legal status.

Republicans are clearly taking note of the shifting electorate. Several have spoke out in favor of gay marriage, and a group of GOP members of Congress are now working on immigration reforms after rebuffing previous efforts by both George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Packer writes:

These dramatic movements are the culture-war equivalent of the spring and summer of 1918, when both the German and Allied armies suddenly advanced dozens of miles across France after years of stalemate in the trenches. According to the Venn diagram of polls on both issues, if you’re over fifty, white, male, vote Republican, didn’t get past high school, and live in a rural area of Kansas or Kentucky, the chances are high that you’re not a bit happy about it.

If it sounds like Packer is gloating, he’s not, and he warns liberals to avoid that temptation, noting that “the wheel of history never stops turning, and no majority is permanent.”