Interesting article, and I can see both sides of the issue.  On one hand, it is true that it's incredibly, incredibly hard for people to immigrate to America.  The old saying that you "need money to make money" is true in the sense that if you show up on our shores with nothing at all, it's going to be awfully hard to make anything of yourself.  That being said, the American dream has always been one of pulling yourself up by the bootstraps and being a self-made-man.  You need to be able to do things on your own and most of the most successful people on Earth came from abject poverty.