"Peaceniks"????? Gosh. What do you call black folks, Dickey, "spearchuckers"? You mean wanting peace is supposed to be a bad thing? ;-)

We have a steady flow of immigrants here, Dickey, from all the usual places: Asia, Latin America, Africa...wherever living standards and salaries are lower than they are in North America or western Europe. We allow as many in on an annual basis as the government deems would not seriously disrupt our society. But many more come in undercover and stay illegally for awhile, just like in the USA. If we had a common border with Mexico, we'd have a real problem....because unlike you Yanks, we have FREE universal health coverage! We are a considerably MORE desirable spot to emigrate to than you are. The reason they go to you first is simply this: you are the easiest and least expensive refuge to physically get to. It does not require purchasing a plane ticket for a Mexican to go to the USA.

Why they want to come to the USA and Canada is totally obvious. We've got a lot of land (specially Canada) with room still for expansion. We've got a First World standard of living. We're not experiencing a domestic war or a violent domestic military government and we're not experiencing massive poverty or starvation.

Why wouldn't they want to come here? They want to come to Holland, Germany, the UK, France, and numerous other places for much the same reasons. People will always emigrate where conditions seem more favorable, and where opportunities seem greater.

Your blind spot is that you seem to think that only applies to the USA. It doesn't.

You know, Americans seem to suffer from this problem: they imagine their nation to be the center of the known Universe. It's not. Neither is it necessarily the "best" place to be in every sense known to man.