"Inscription on the Statue of Liberty"

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses, yearning to breath free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
Author: Emma Lazarus

Once that was true - but almost always with strings attached.  

According to some experts, when the Jews came over Peter Stuyvesant met their boats and extracted a promise that they would always take care of their own.  Thus, the service organization B'nai Brith was created.

During Hitler;s regime the boatloads of Jews trying to escape being annihilated were turned away.

Cuban's escaping Castro were allowed to remain if their feet could touch the shore.

Where is the balance?  How do we determine who and how many?   If we had a totally open door policy would we be encouraging millions of people to leave their countries of origin to come here - just the thousands we could readily absorb?

The great compliment of course - never to be forgotten - is no matter how much we may complain about our country - and how much we want to "tweak" it to improve it - it is still the greatest country in the world - the proof being it's where everyone wants to be.