You certainly make some interesting points, and I commend you on that.

I was 27 years old this summer, and the people I worked with had a wide variety of ages. I do agree that many of the immigrant groups coming into America have been viewed in a poor light, and wrongly so. I would also like to say that I do not hold the Mexicans at fault for coming here.

The people that are coming in are generally people who were born in the harshest economic settings. And while I believe that any American born person with a work ethic has a chance to succeed in America, that is not true for the Mexicans coming in. Many of them do not work so that they themselves can be successful, but so that they can give their children the opportunity to be successful. As far as generations, I know that the vast majority were all first generation, though it wasn't their inability to speak English that bothered me, so much as their lack of desire to try.

As I said above, I do not fault the Mexicans coming here for their lack of loyalty, I fault the current system which essentially discourages their loyalty. They can easily come over illegally and make money, but it is much harder for them to bring in their family, so they send all of their money back to Mexico.

As far as a reference for the Roman Empire, I can look it up for you, but it is commonly accepted that the barbarian armies that defeated Rome were in fact Roman trained. A good reference would be the History Channel on that one. Let me know and I'll look it up further.

BTW, Kudos on bringing up some good points, I'll give them some further thought.