But many of those coming here are not well educated. Hard working maybe, adventurous certainly, but often economically deprived and undereducated as a result, or so I’ve read.

There is a real illegal vs legal split here, legal immigrants tend to be quite well educated. The majority of illegal immigrants have a high school degree but they are definitely less educated than the average American.

That said, while undocumented immigrants tend to be less educated being able to work when we didn’t pay for any of their education is still a boon. It’s something of a waste to pay for 12 years of education and then have someone doing manual labor.

If you immigrated to the west as a working proffesional, then you have to have job offer, education and usually you have to be somewhat well off to be able to afford lawyers and get through the visa process.