All this talk about legal and illegal immigration. Yes it's true that this country owes much to immigrants. But those people in the late 1800's and early 1900's were given "instant amnesty" because of the needs of Chinese labors on the railroads in the West, and Irish and German laborers in the factories in the East. They came in droves and were instantly amnestized and all were perfectly "legal" at the time. Now the laws have changed, and migrant workers are "illegal". There has been no change in the shift of populations, but only in the laws of this land. So to argue that the prosperity of this country is shouldered upon earlier immigrants who were "legal" is moot. Those immigrants would be considered just as illegal as today's Mexican immigrants.