ABSTRACT
For a brief period in the mid-nineteenth century, a new political movement captured the passions of the American public. America is being overrun with immigrants. In one sense, of course, this is true, but in that sense it has been true since Christopher Columbus arrived. Except for the real Native Americans, we are a nation of immigrants. The Council of Economic Advisers similarly found in 1986 that “immigrants have a favorable effect on the overall standard of living.” At the time, the greatest influx of immigrants was from Ireland, where the potato famine had struck, and Germany, which was in political and economic turmoil. In fact, undocumented immigrants are already ineligible for most social programs, with the exception of education for schoolchildren, which is constitutionally required, and benefits directly related to health and safety, such as emergency medical care and nutritional assistance to poor women, infants and children.
