It's All About Benjamin's Opinion

Thus speaks Franklin:

Why should [the German] be suffered to swarm into our settlements and, by herding together, establish their language and manners to the exclusion of ours? Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a colony of aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanise us, instead of us Anglicising them?

Let's chalk him up as a posthumous proponent of Bush's amnesty plan. Sorry, "Immigration Reform".

And, as Paul Johnson writes:

[Franklin's] views were by no means unusual among the founders. Neither Washington nor Jefferson wanted unlimited or even large-scale immigration.

It may seem to be a paradox that Americans, who all descended from immigrants, are quick to shut the door on those who would seek to do the same, but it is a false paradox at best. There is nothing inconsistent in expecting those who would settle here to go through the same process of assimilation which our ancestors did. The extent of my Irish/German ancestry is a strange pair of red side-burns, and a love for Guinness and sauerkraut, though seldom together. I am, for good or for ill, an American. And the very least that can be said of the twelve plus million illegals who Bush is ready to make de facto citizens is that they are not nearly ready to consider themselves the same.