I think part of the problem is that most Americans have no clue how the immigration system works. They see a large number of immigrants and hear horror stories about "chaos at the border" and "open border" and assume it's easy to immigrate. Even if you know someone who immigrated, you probably only know that route. Even though I'm a nationalized citizen myself, I can only tell you about the exact route that applied to my specific circumstances and beyond that mostly just know that it's extremely complicated and burdensome.

We don't even have to imagine. Many in this very comment section support this.