I also find this quote interesting from the recent edition of TIME:

The Democratic Party nominated a slew of New Yorkers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries when Tammany Hall was the powerhouse of the state's big-city ethnic base. But the Republicans tapped New Yorkers too --Theodore Roosevelt, Charles Evans Hughes, Thomas Dewey--as did significant third parties: former President Millard Fillmore headed the anti-immigrant American Party ticket in 1856. Some New York candidates went straight from the campaign trail to the footnotes--Horatio Seymour, anyone?--but four New Yorkers managed to win eight presidential elections: Martin Van Buren (1836), Grover Cleveland (1884, 1892), Theodore Roosevelt (1904) and Franklin Roosevelt (1932, 1936, 1940, 1944).

I always think of the current immigration battle as new, but forget it's been going on for almost as long as the US has existed. It's just that the immigrants are changing. Fillmore probably didn't like those Irish bastards (of which I claim partial heritage) coming onto American soil back then, not it's the Hispanics who are "threatening our way of life." Who will it be next?