John Denver sang about the Rocky Mountains before he had ever seen them. It may be that many immigrants to our country, illegal and legal alike, sang about America before they ever saw it.

And they flock here. By plane, by boat, by train, by car and many by foot. So many that they make up a group large enough that they can be seen as “other,” and that means as a target of curiosity, suspicion, doubt and, yes, hatred.

As “other,” immigrants have become blurred in the public mind. The first blurring was between illegal and legal. About 11 million came illegally. The idea that they are brown folks who waded the Rio Grande is simply wrong. The largest single group now comes in as legals who overstay their visas, making them illegals. They come from Canada, Europe, Asia. Probably few of the visa over-stayers waded in.

It is no surprise that many of the 43 million legal immigrants resent the illegals. They followed the rules, the 11 million didn’t. And, it is legitimate, even if it comes from the worst of Donald Trump’s trogs, to ask what our country wants from immigration. Can we serve both our country and the dreams of some of the millions who would come here?

Immigration gives us a vibrancy other countries lack. Japan is harsh on immigration. Japan has been in an economic doldrum for more than 20 years, perhaps saved only by America’s taste for Japanese cars. Australia is harsh on immigration. Name anything of note that has occurred in Australia since the Sydney Opera House opened in 1973. Your other images of Australia may be even older. Kangaroos. Koalas. Foster’s Beer.

As America ignites imaginations around the world, the question is whom do we welcome here, to become one of us and to work like the devil to live the dream?

Do we welcome those with specific skills? That means hundreds of thousands of techno nerds. Do we welcome those who will work jobs that Americans find objectionable, such as picking lettuce in Arizona? That means legalize the current process under which millions have come in illegally to work on huge farms where Americans won’t.

Do we allow those who came through no action of their own, brought illegally by their parents, to become citizens? The DACA kids have been, basically, Americans, attending school, working for a living. Do we welcome anyone just because she is an aunt or cousin of someone legally here? The feds call that “family preference” and Trump calls it “chain migration.” Do we welcome the rich under the EB-5 program to invest in something American and then enter in a satchel full of their own money?

These aren’t simple questions, and even if the entire issue boiled down to just these five questions, you would have something like 27 possible combinations of answers. It’s no wonder the 535 members of Congress cannot agree on a reform.

The present system would not survive if it didn’t have wide support. Not just white-only nay-sayers, but real support. Who benefits from the system? As a retired farmer, I’m sorry to say that agri-business benefits. Want to see human beings scatter in a flash? Show a badge on a farm in California. Hundreds of mostly brown people will flee to the nearest tree line, canal or pickup truck. Other wealthy people benefit, too. Flash that badge in a day-labor center in, say, West Palm Beach. The guys waiting for some rich dude to hire them to plant and tend verbenas will find a side door. Fast. They likely had already scoped out the place to make sure it had a side door,

Don’t forget the elected politicians. On both sides. Hard-line Republicans cite the letter of the law and pretend that it is possible to evict all 11 million illegal immigrants. It isn’t. So, how do they propose to turn the 11 million into something else? They don’t. They just want a target, the “other,” at whom to throw their venom, to make their political points.

And the squishiest of Democrats want to keep the system alive, too, with lots of legal and illegal immigrants, figuring most Americans will approve because the vast majority of us stem from immigrants, legal and illegal, over the past 411 years. They call it compassion.

So, they support “sanctuary cities,” in which some liberal cities have instructed their police not to cooperate with the feds in rounding up illegal immigrants. They must not understand that the job of law enforcement is to enforce the law. Yes, cops set priorities. Usually, they put the arrest of violent criminals at the top the list. The vast majority of immigrants, illegal and legal alike, are not violent criminals, so local cops don’t encounter illegal immigrants every day. But sanctuary people tell their police NOT to cooperate with other police in arresting illegal immigrants. That seems a dangerous step. Can you say slippery slope?

It doesn’t matter when the left says, correctly, that being here illegally is a civil rather than a criminal offense. Would they tell their police not to enforce drunk-driving laws because first-timers are committing a civil rather than a criminal offense? Not likely.

My mother imprinted on us pride in our immigrant heritage, stretching from 1623 or so. One of my sisters got her DNA tested to find out more about that immigrant heritage. We take it that my DNA duplicates hers. She is 73.5 percent English-Scottish, 19.4 percent Scandinavian. That’s standard-issue Scottish-American. But then, add this. She is 3 percent Middle Eastern, 1.8 percent Ashkenazi Jew, 1.2 percent North African and 1.1 percent Nigerian. Something went on that we never heard about. With that pedigree, perhaps one of our ancestors crossed the Red Sea with Moses. And a reminder that we are immigrants several times over.

Of course, there are special cases. Millions of African Americans, like the DACA kids, came here as part of someone else’s dream. In their case, the dream of the most evil of our forebears, the slave traders.

Bob Neal loves America’s polyglot nature. One of his favorite T-shirts, worn by an Indian Mainer, said something like, “Fighting illegal immigration. . . since 1492.”