I grew up in a border town and got to know many, I guess "legal" Hispanic immigrants. I never asked for their papers in other words; I took them at their word. But yeah, they freely would discuss how their anchor in the States was used to shuttle in endless family members legally or otherwise. I mean, some of them were our neighbors. Their kids went to school with us. People just loosen up and talk when they let their hair down.
I came riding a horse up on a family of them in a ditch by a roadway, just across our border once when I was a teen. They were wearing bright clothes and if I knew Spanish well enough I would've told them to tone it down and wear camouflage. The point is I felt bad for them. It was obvious they had just made it across the border. They were so out of their element, looking very indian from deep Mexico. They were skinny and looked dehydrated. The temp outside was creeping up to I guess the high 90s that day. There was a little shade from a sumac bush they were crouching under without a drop of water in sight. I understand this is how many of them lose their lives crossing the desert regions of our border. I was young. I didn't know what to do except hope for the best for them naively. But in hindsight those skinny little kids looking so parched were in danger of death. My naivete probably put their lives in danger.
We encourage these illegal migrations by our policies. Then their lives are in danger. The only alternative to this dual world is to throw our borders wide open. But that would be fiscal suicide. So a solution that is both humane and sane needs to be found.
Chain-migration is absolutely a thing. It's not just "a" thing, it's "THE" thing. It's the reason most come here, to secure an anchor to bring the rest of their loved ones. That's what any human being of any skin color or nationality would want to do. Bring all their friends and family to the better region they're trying to secure to live in. Racist my ass.
The problem is, the US is going broke and we can't fiscally do this favor of turning a blind eye anymore. I personally don't hate these hardworking migrants at all. It's just that it's hard for people to keep having warm fuzzies for them when they are taking jobs away from actual citizens, getting more and better healthcare than actual citizens, getting better scholarships for education than actual citizens, and so on. All while our economy does a slow bleed from bad to worse. The real second class citizen in the US is the hardworking natural born citizen and taxpayer.