That's just not true!
As a first generation American, and having come from a community of assimilated Europeans, I know there are highly skilled foreigners who come here to participate in the American Dream and become Americans.
My dentist is a very nice woman from India...trying to become all-American
It is true regardless of what anecdotal information you cite. 25% of adult legal immigrants lack even a high school degree. They are heavy users of our welfare system. For every dentist, there are three times as many poor and uneducated. And the vast majority of our legal immigrants come from the Third World, not Europe. And one factor that many Americans have no idea about is that 60% of the green cards issued each year are to change of status individuals, i.e., they got here one way, many times illegally, and then changed status.
Here is an article from a friend of mine, Two Sides of the Same Coin: The Connection Between Legal and Illegal Immigration"
I find it difficult when I address groups that even legal immigration must be reduced if we are going to maintain this nation as our Founders hoped. Unfortunately, we have been brainwashed by these phony claims that we are a nation of immigrants and that somehow we can accept any number of immigrants as long as they are legal. I wish we had a merit based immigration system where we brought in only skilled immigrants, but they make up only about 15% of the 1.2 million we bring in annually.