Avi K,
“Avram, are you saying that the US should take in all comers?”
That’s another false dilemma. The U.S. should prioritize keeping dangerous people out while maintaining its values as a refuge and beacon of hope for those yearning to be free, and stop mucking up the legal process to try and keep non-violent people out. Personally, I fear the flow of drugs northward into the U.S. and the flow of guns southward into Mexico and Central America a lot more than I fear families who happen to speak Spanish, and I think that’s where most of the U.S. border security resources should be prioritized.
“How exactly would you monitor them without establishing a totalitarian state?”
The best way would be to speed up the processing of asylum claims in the legal system. Barring that, something like a weekly check-in with a case worker is hardly totalitarian.