1. Some immigration is a good thing, such as by highly skilled people that we need, allowing migrant workers to help with harvests, allowing students to study in our schools and universities, diplomatic needs, cultural group tours, international corporation needs, technician support for foreign products, tourism, and so on.
2. There are two basic kinds of legal immigration: permanent and temporary, and then there is the illegal kind. Legal immigration is controlled by issuing visas that spell out the conditions of entry and exit,
3. There are two kinds of illegal entry: sneaking over the border, and overstaying a legal visa that has an entry and leaving time specified.
4. Illegal entry is the biggest problem. Control of the border to prevent illegal entry is necessary, using border agents, sensors, boats, aircraft, cars and trucks, walls and strong surveillance at major entry points---whatever is needed. An estimate of our illegal population is around 20 million people.
5. A major issue that must be solved is how many legal visas we should issue yearly? This includes the number of illegal immigrants granted a stay of departure at a court hearing to determine whether they can remain or not, and under what conditions.
6. A second major issue is how many foreign citizens we should allow to become naturalized citizens per year, and what qualifications they must have. Of all the qualifications, assimilation and learning English are vital.
7. How we apportion the number of visas between nations is a contentious issue, as is how we apportion visas among skill types regardless of nation.
8. Virtually no tracking of aliens with temporary visas or with a court date for illegals is a very serious shortfall, and it must be corrected.
9. The most vexing problem of all is what to do about the 20 million illegals currently living and working in the nation? Amnesty and eventual citizenship is one idea, and at the other pole of thought is taking, say, a ten-year period to ship all illegals we can find back to their home country.
There are significant problems with these ideas, not the least of which is that either idea, if attempted, has a massive cost to our taxpayers, and also our industries. This assumes that the current cost of the existing illegals to the taxpayer outweighs by far their contribution to the tax base, primarily because the majority of illegals pay little or no taxes since they earn so little, and they take full advantage of our schools and hospitals for years.
The cost of finding, feeding, and supporting 20 million illegal aliens while they are being processed and eventually transported to their country of origin is massive as well, and the idea presents numerous serious legal and humanitarian problems.
10. Two other vexing problems are the Anchor Baby, where those born in the US by illegal aliens are automatically US citizens, then Chain Migration allows them to pull their relatives into the US legally, an act that can be used by naturalized citizens as well.
11. Illegal entry by gangsters such as MS-13 members is yet another problem, and it is worse than most people realize. Over 400,000 criminal illegals were caught and sent back across the border in 2018. We are not sure how many made it into the US and are living somewhere and practicing their criminal acts. This is tantamount to an invasion!
12. President Trump has vowed to build a wall of sufficient length and height to act as a barrier to large scale group entry of illegals, which would make patrolling the border much more efficient, and make surveillance systems more effective as well. Parallel efforts to increase the number of Immigration Judges, and Border Patrol Officers are included.
13. My own view concerning the existing illegals is to set up the means to determine which illegal aliens are law-abiding, productive, and assimilating well over a defined period of time and give them a route to citizenship, while those who do not meet these and other requirements should be considered for immediate deportation.
14. Pleading their case for asylum based on hearsay evidence should result in denial of entry. There must be concrete rules developed for allowing entry of asylum seekers. It is obvious that we cannot accept all asylum seekers in the world, for that matter, we cannot accept all that would like to live here.

My research indicates undocumented ("illegal") immigrants are ineligible for virtually all welfare programs.
If anyone can provide sources that indicate otherwise, please share them.

Immigrants who are here legally - those always held up as laudable for following the "right way" to enter U.S., however, are eligible for many of the same means-tested benefits that are available to naturalized citizens.

I think it's important to know the facts.

https://immigrationforum.org/article/fact-sheet-immigrants-and-public-benefits/