Having embraced these recent years a restrictive, anti-market approach, the more liberty-oriented parts of the GOP have begun to assert themselves.
Just green shoots for now, but ones good for Republicans and all America. Ilya Somin notices that
It is also noteworthy that both Rubio and Paul linked support for immigration with a more general pro-free market and pro-individual freedom stance. I elaborated on that idea in more detail here. Free migration is also an important element of political freedom.
There’s a sensible caveat, too:
Obviously, the immigration sections of Paul’s and Rubio’s speeches are very general. It remains to be seen whether and to what extent the GOP and the Tea Party movement will translate them into policy specifics. Moreover, the Republican Party still clearly contains a large restrictionist wing, some parts of which verge into nativism. They are not simply going to give up as a result of these two speeches.
Via Volokh Conspiracy.