If you came from Europe trying to build a better life, the standard was fleeing famine and starvation, avoiding corrupt govt, stop being butchered like hogs, living without festering sewers with rampant disease and no resources, and still 1 in 4 returned to Europe at the turn of the century. It was brutal by our standards today, so let's not get carried away with rose colored history. Today's immmigrants are no different than Italians, Russians, Irish, Jews, Greeks, Chinese, and the whole lot of that era.