[robertlagrant]

No one disagrees with what it stood for; in fact, the US is still the world leader in immigration. But that doesn't mean illegal immigration is okay. If we want to play statue originalists for a second, the fact that the statue stands as an invitation shows it believes that an invitation is required to enter someone else's country.

[_heimdall]

Interesting, I don't actually read the poem on the statue as an invitation so much as an ideal that an invitation isn't needed since everyone is welcomed.

Illegal immigration is a whole bag of worms since it only comes down to what laws we choose to write. Our immigration policies today are much more strict than they were historically (with a possible caveat for wartime years). Where it once was legal as long as you went through a port of entry and provided basic info, today its a multi year process tied to merit and limited by caps on total immigration and country of origin. Both were legal if you followed the rules of the day, but the rules are drastically more strict today.