To some, yes. Probably to the majority here on FR.
But note that they like to make that all-important distinction between legal and illegal immigration, which is roughly equivalent to approving of abortion as a birth-control method for single women but not those who are legally married, as if having that piece of paper makes all the difference in the world.
When asked, I doubt that one FReeper in 10 can tell you how many apply, how long it takes, or which authority of the 1986 Immigration Law pertains to the hordes of potential legal immigrants from Mexico (since that's really what we're talking about, not those coming from Sudan or Bali or Korea) which everyone wishes were "legal." All they will say is there are too many illegals, and they are jumping ahead in line, and they need to go home and wait it out.
Temporary insanity? No, I don't think so. It's more on the order of mob hysteria, bordering (pardon the pun) on xenophobia among those who truly worry about "the American culture" being trampled. Pat Buchanan is a perfect example, along with Prof. Samuel Huntington.
The American culture will survive, as it has through waves of immigrants from Eastern Europe, China, Ireland and Southeast Asia. Each wave was met with severe anti-immigrant feelings, racism and social ostracism. Chinese were relegated to a fenced-off section of San Francisco, now called Chinatown, and prohibited from all but menial occupations. The American culture nevertheless survived, as did the Chinese culture, by some miracle.
When the inflation figures come out in a month or two, we'll see if immigration is really the issue some think it is. My guess is by November, it will be the economy, stupid.
Fascinating. BTW can you tell us exactly how you managed to wade through all of the chaff and misdirection thrown out by the xenophobes regarding things like downward wage pressures, overcrowded schools, crime, closing ERs and, in the case of California, 9 billion dollars a year in additional expenses, to arrive at this remarkably concise but no doubt brilliant blanket conclusion?