Once, long ago, I think we could have had a public conversation in the US about what we want immigrant policy to be. The problem is that a lot of people have kind of vague and conflicting ideas, or just various mythologies. If, as the administration suggests, we should only allow in people who don't need public assistance of any kind to establish themselves, then we should also look at what happens to people who are then in stuck in countries like Mexico, El Salvador, et al. If we identify the problem as poverty and poor government in those places, what should be our role in helping to fix that? The ultimate solution, if the goal is to diminish immigration from troubled spots, is to be part of fixing the trouble and help those nations be so hospitable to their inhabitants that they don't want to flee northward. In other words, prevention tends to be better than cure. And costs less, longterm. Civilizations that lose the capacity to develop longterm solutions, and do everything on the short term, "management by crisis," method, don't tend to endure.