As far as legal immigration goes, do you know the 'legal and supervised' process my ancestors (and likely yours) went through? Get to Ellis Island pass a medical screening. That was it and that was the process for most of this country's history. Of course, for most of our history we were busy populating the frontier and that's no longer the case. Now we are busy populating the businesses that drive the economy. I don't think we can draw many parallels between then and now. My screening would be: pass a security screen (which should not take 18 months), pass a medical screen and have a job waiting for you.
So yeah, I'm a capitalist and I'm going to lean on letting the job market play a huge role. I'm certainly not in favor of imigrants that come into the country and become wards of the state via the social safety net. I'm also not very politically correct, which will piss some people off. With Syria, for instance, I would take all of the Syrian doctors, engineers, scientists and entrepreneurs that can pass a serious security screen. Heck, we took all the Nazi doctors, engineers and scientists we could get our hands on won the 'space race' and arguably the cold war because of it. I don't want the no-skill refugees that can't contribute but if they can pass security and medical screens and have a job waiting, then bring 'em on. That's a somewhat heartless stance but practical.