davsel, when you say "the vast majority came here legally," realize that there wasn't a huge formalized process for most of the 19th century. America pretty much welcomed anyone who got off a boat. With no welfare system, you either learned to be productive or you died.

A lot of the objections raised in this thread were raised against the Irish, Italians, Chinese, etc. immigrants 100 or more years ago.

Reagan pointed out 30 years ago that even in the midst of the Carter Recession (which was far worse than the Bush Recession despite what the mass media say but not quite as bad as the Obama Continued-Recession), you could find Help Wanted ads running that weren't being filled. Despite what people want to say about getting rid of the illegals and Americans will fill the jobs, the fact of the matter is that there were and continue to be tons of jobs that Americans don't seem to want to take. I blame the social welfare system for much of this but regardless of how you assign blame, it's a fact of life.

Every economic boom in our country's history has been preceded by an immigration wave. What we need to do is harness the energy of immigrants who are hungry for a new life but weed out those who are simply parasites or infections.