Um. I have a strong difference of opinion on this.
Ever since 1607 (the founding of the Jamestown settlement), this country has been settled by people who came here for as many different reasons as there were people. The Jamestown folks came because they were hoping to get seriously rich. The Pilgrims of 1620 came because they disagreed with the religion back home in England, but I wouldn’t characterize them as “refugees”. They lived in Holland for a while in reasonable bourgeois prosperity before they finally got together and chartered the Mayflower. That was not a “cheap” refugee expedition–it took a sizeable outlay of capital.
During the whole 17th, 18th, and most of the 19th centuries, Swedes and Germans and Irish and English and French and Russians and all sorts of people came here. Very few of them came because they were “refugees”, in the sense of “someone fleeing”, and certainly not in the modern sense of “someone fleeing for his life with only the clothes he’s wearing”.
Some of them came because they disagreed with the politics back home, but I would say that the vast majority came because they were hoping, if not to get seriously rich, then at least to have a better life, with more freedom, which would include the freedom to worship as they wished without having to deal with a lot of government interference. However, “government interference” doesn’t necessarily equal “persecution”. Many of the 19th century European states had official state religions, and if you wanted to worship as something offbeat, like a Hutterite or a Quaker, you could have problems, but which wouldn’t necessarily involve soldiers knocking on your door in the middle of the night and dragging you off to prison.
It’s only during the latter part of the 19th century, with the pogroms of Eastern Europe and Russia, and the rise of the modern state, that we start seeing “refugees”, in the sense of “people fleeing for their lives with only the clothes they stand up in.” And not all of THEM were fleeing “political” or “religious” persecution, either. It’s entirely possible to be an “economic” refugee.
Peace, you begin to remind me of those folks who move to Oregon because of its clean air, clean water, and high standard of living, and as soon as they get there, they start beating the drum to discourage other people from moving in. And some of them are quite loud and obnoxious about it. “Don’t come here, we don’t want you. We don’t need any more people in Oregon, adding their trash, their pollution, their demands for more services, filling up our schools with their children. Outlander, go home.” There’s a name for this syndrome but I can’t think what it is, offhand.
It seems like you’re saying, “Hey, I got in, but now I think we should start tightening up the requirements.” I don’t think that sounds very fair.