Immigration as a win-win affair: our history demonstrates that immigration, properly regulated and controlled, can--and did--have a beneficial effect on our nation's economy and culture.(HISTORY--PAST AND PERSPECTIVE)

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Despite the inevitable challenges created by any mass migration, by and large America has benefited in the past from immigrants who came here for the fight reasons. Most were willing to learn the language and become Americans; they worked hard and pulled themselves up by the bootstraps. In the process, they not only improved their own lives and those of their families, but they also made a positive contribution to their adopted country.

The classic depiction of America as a "land of opportunity and freedom" appealed primarily to immigrants who had suffered from the excesses of government, mostly in Europe. For the most part, they expected nothing of government but to be left alone. The United States, unique in the world, provided that free environment in which the hardworking and innovative individual could flourish.

Immigrants came to our shores from many nations, but among the traits common to most of them were the willingness to work hard, to become self-sufficient, and to respect the rule of law, without which, the United States would cease to exist.

Early Immigration

Indeed, it could be argued that the United States might not even have come into existence without the benefit of European migration from the collectivist old world. Though the United States was not a "nation of immigrants" since most of the population was not foreign born, America was created by the progeny of those immigrant-settlers--with some help from new arrivals.

The signers of the Declaration of Independence obviously saw some benefit in encouraging immigrants to continue coming to America. In listing the grievances against King George III, the signers complained: "He has endeavored to prevent the Population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their Migrations hither." The colonists' grievances were in reaction to a 1763 proclamation issued by King George III that "until further notice no colonial government could grant, and no white man take, land beyond the sources of rivers that flow into the Atlantic." The motivation behind the proclamation was to stem further westward expansion (mostly by immigrants) into inland areas that were far removed from the direct political control of the British government.