For some people, the debate over the immigration bill before the Senate ended on June 18. That day, the Congressional Budget Office released two reports, one suggesting that the bill would increase economic growth in the U.S. and the other suggesting it would reduce the deficit over the next two decades.

Jonathan Tobin, writing for the website of the conservative magazine Commentary, argued that the reports showed that economic issues did not really supply a motive for opponents of the bill. Many of them really believe that a new large wave of legal immigration would be bad for the country, a sentiment Tobin found “neither defensible nor logical.”

This article appears in the July 15, 2013 edition of National Review and is available online by subscription.