Ron Olesko:

"Ron, why would you say a thing like
Frankly, we were all here "illegal"? "

Check your invitation

Ron, I was born here, of legal parentage, who sprang of people born here of legal parentage, (who etc. X3), under the laws of the United States. Descended from legal immigrants. I'm legal. I don't need an invitation. Nor did my forebears.   

You said "we're ALL here illegal."

Riginslinger said,

Well, Dave, maybe Kennewick Man was the only legal citizen. Everyone we are aware of showed up after him.

Kennewick man (if indeed the first, and I'll assume that to be true arguendo) did not establish a legal system which made all subsequent comers "illegals". If it did, it would make all subsequent Indian "immigrants" illegals too.

The first "European" explorers and attempted immigrants we can verify, Leif Ericsson and company (seven vessels, if I recall correctly), coming from Greenland on a scouting/colonization mission in about the year 1000, were attacked by a group they referred to as "the Skraelings", and withdrew to the Greenland colony, whence they had come. From the fact of the attack we can assume they were unwelcome in the Markland/Vinland area, but "illegal"? We know of no civil society or law of the Skraelings that made Ericsson's party "illegal". It was merely a territorial skirmish between two groups.

The American Indians did not have the concept of an overarching state that established "ownership" of the continent or even those areas they frequented. Indeed, even the concept of exclusive ownership of land was foreign to them. This is part of why the fabled "purchase" of Manhattan for--what was it, $26 worth of trinkets?--is ridiculous.    In that case, the "sellers" didn't even live and hunt there regularly, but were just passing through, and it was the Dutch who got swindled, because they purportedly were sold land by "non-owners". But even then, the concept of exclusive ownership of lands was foreign to Indian culture.

A number of European settlements on the Eastern Seaboard of what is now the US were subsequently made without friction--at least initially--with the neighboring Indians. Indeed, in several if not many cases they were welcomed. So they were not "illegal immigrants" even if you want to see the neighboring Indian tribes as owners or the sovereign power of the area.

Yes, later there were conflicts, forced and/or fraudulent treaties with the Indians, etc., many if not most later broken on the white side, but wrong as those were they fall into a different category than "illegal immigration". If you want to say that a great deal of the US territory was stolen or extorted from the Indians, I'll agree with you. If you want to point out that there were incidents which today would be considered ethnic cleansing, or biological warfare, or various other war crimes, I'll agree with you.   

Dave Oesterreich