What is the statistic now? What percentage of American citizens can pass the naturalization exam? Don't forget most of us came from immigration, and for every "lazy" immigrant you THINK you know, there are 10 hard working, tail busting, immigrants who would do anything to stay in this country.
Best post in the thread! Cause I am one of 'em. I served my country, paid my taxes, have volunteered countless hours from working with disabled (Brain trauma included) vets, to teaching kindergartners to read. (For all the years I have volunteered one of the teachers has figured I've been involved with as many as 1,500 kids.) I have raised seven socially responsible children two of whom have graduated from college and have started families of their own.
I also am a descendent of people who were treated with extreme prejudice, like the Hispanic are today. In cartoons, one in particular, showed the line of human progression with Caucasians (English, and few select other Western Europeans) at the top, African Americans below monkeys, and Irish below Africans. I can produce the cartoon through a friend's archives, as well as a collection of "Irish Need Not Apply" signs. In the 1840's through the 1930's the Irish were at the effect of monstrous attacks. It was claimed that they would ruin the country. What they did was preserve the Union, up to forty percent of all the combatants, North and South were Irish. Just think, one of the smallest Western European countries nearly contributed more soldiers that the rest of the world and the Sons of the Mayflower combined!
The Irish provided the backbone of the police and fire service throughout the country, and provided the backbone for the most explosive military growth in a country's capabilities to wage war, ever. The Irish came in and did the jobs no one else would or could, just like the Hispanics are today. They dug the drainage ditches, canals, and railroads of America, and dug the building foundations into the clay and bedrock for the buildings and factories of our towns. The value of the Irish was they had no value. They were not “prized property”, nor did they have anything, so they worked and died; they were expendable. The saying was, "America was built by Wind power, Steam power, and Irish power." I know that to be true, it is etched in my own family's American experience.
And I have seen this progression with the Hispanic. I have a number of people I have known, who have great stories to tell of non-citizen enlistees who have paid for their (families) residence in America with their own blood, in Iran and Iraq. I have experienced this in the work I have done with disabled vets. Everyone who served has a story of this singular bravery that they would pay for a new home (country with freedom and opportunity) with their blood. Would each of you?