Even before there was a global economy and the technology to support global communication, shipping and rapid travel, America was the world's gathering place. America did not collect the world's wealthy and elite, it attracted those rejected, oppressed, enslaved and even jailed. But those with the courage to come freely or the strength to survive the harsh treatment of slavery (and the equally harsh treatment of Native Americans) are the people who built this nation. The people trying to slam the door closed behind them are nearly all the descendants of relatively recent immigrants.