In Our Immigration Policies, are We a Land Only for the Privileged?

   These days, they will tell you, "Immigration is a privilege, not a right." I will wonder, then, how America has drifted, for there was a day when it was the other way around, and we were all about rights, not privileges.
   Back in the day, it was a freedom to come to America. And, now, this: We say it should only be for the chosen, the privileged. We speak of "merit-based" immigration, where some people bear merit and others don't. If you are not a person of "merit," you shouldn't be allowed to come. That's our thinking these days.
   Has America become a land only for the privileged? Will we insist none but the privileged be allowed to come? Is this where we are headed? Is this where -- to some extent -- we are already at?
  I long for the return of the day when we put rights ahead of privilege. I so think it better to practice freedom the way it was practiced back when freedoms were handed out -- and the right to immigrate was smack dab in the middle of those rights. If we had the thinking of those back in 1776, immigration would be a right, not a privilege. Privilege was something for the aristocrats of England, and the colonists fled to get away from it.