[ncountylee]

Have read that the total number of legal immigrants admitted to the US is around 50 million since the country was founded.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

And the country was founded with a few million citizens. As a percentage, while the proportion of immigrants to natives is getting close, the largest percentage of immigrants as part of the population was in the 1800's when German, Irish, Italian, etc. immigrants came because of famine (Ireland and Germany, to some extent) and as political refugees after the Central European revolutions of 1848.

However, to note, the second largest nonEnglish language (not including ebonics) after Spanish is German. And the Germans largely came over a century ago, and could easily blend in and assimilate into the majority society (they looked similar).

This seems to suggest that the quota system should be reconsidered, but if so, they should try to not make it racist. With a sizeable but sufficient amount of people from a country, they can be assimilated into American society more easily if making media and communities of their ethnicity is more difficult. They can be encouraged/pressured to adopt American culture.