Here are three different ways to run an immigration regime. First, you could encourage controlled, legal settlement, awarding a certain number of places each year to the best-qualified applicants. Second, you could recruit overseas workers en masse and ship them over to fill your labor shortages. Third, you could retrospectively give citizenship to anyone who sneaks in and stays for long enough.

The first, broadly speaking, was the traditional policy of the United States and Canada. Newcomers to those countries arrived having, as it were, beaten several competitors to win their places. This gave them a commensurate sense of pride and patriotism. Not in every case, obviously, but often enough to make both countries examples of successful assimilation.