Americans have had a love/hate relationship with immigration practically since the first colony was settled in the seventeenth century. During America’s early years, immigrants—called colonists or settlers then—were needed and wanted to settle the vast regions of the new land. When King George III prevented immigrants from coming to the American colonies, the founding fathers listed his actions as one of their grievances in the Declaration of Independence: “He has endeavoured to prevent the Population of these States; by obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their Migrations hither, and raising the Conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.”1

A century later, in 1883, Emma Lazarus wrote a poem, “The New Colossus,” to raise funds to build the pedestal for the Statue of Liberty...