Obviously overgeneralizing - but the predominant reason someone is in America is almost always: they/their ancestor wanted better economic opportunity, didn't trust their old government, or both. In my experience usually both. Either someone felt this directly, their immediate family did, or the stories of why still often get passed down. Even several generations later, I refuse to trust governments because our family patriarch had his entire family killed by government employees in front of him as a child and they were dirt poor to start with anyway, and this happened in a supposedly "affluent, educated, democracy". If it could happen to him there it could happen anywhere. I will tell my children these stories when they're old enough.