New beginnings. New possibilities. New stories. That is the dream, the hope, that has brought new immigrants to America since the first settlers established the first, now lost colony in Virginia.

The homelands of these immigrants have changed over the centuries — with the most recent always getting to wear the “worst yet” hat. There have been the Protestant Dissenters, the enslaved Africans, the starving Irish, the Jewish Eastern Europeans, the Catholic Italians, Greeks and Turks fleeing wars, and most recently, our closest neighbors, those from Mexico, Central and South America.

No matter what your own personal immigration policy may be, one thing is clear: the over-arching drive that has brought each new immigrant generation to America is the quest for a better life. Dreams whose doors …