Americans should be furious that their tax dollars are now supporting most immigrants, regardless of their legal status. A new study finds that a majority of immigrant households in the U.S. are on welfare, including legal immigrants. Instead of cherry-picking the top 1% from around the world, America has been importing welfare recipients.

That’s incredibly perplexing because a very wealthy nation can choose the cream of the crop. That’s what happened for most of American history, with the U.S. tapping the world’s brains, talents and human capital—the last being the most valuable capital there is.

Lately, however, America has been mostly importing welfare cases, according to the Center for Immigration Statistics (CIS), which tallies immigrants on welfare by country of origin.

The least bad group is Canadian immigrants, with a low of 19%, which is still too high since it should be zero. From there, things get very ugly, very quickly.

One in three Chinese immigrants, half of Colombians, two-thirds of Mexicans and Hondurans, and over 80% of Afghans are on the dole. Somalis, of course, are even higher, indicating those “Learing” Centers just don’t pay the bills like they used to.

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Altogether, an astonishing 53% of immigrant households use one or more government programs such as cash welfare, food stamps, Medicaid, and Section 8 housing. That’s nearly double the rate of native-born Americans. It gets worse because millions more take child tax credits at $2,200 per child, and Earned Income Tax Credit, which gives migrants up to $8,000 a year.

Of course, for illegals it’s much worse, with CIS estimating almost two-thirds have access to traditional welfare. And once they have that anchor-baby, or open one of those infamous “Learing” Centers, it’s off the charts.

Instead of being a substantial net benefit, these migrants are a net loss for America—and the numbers aren’t trivial. According to the Federation for American Immigration Reform, illegals alone are draining $150 billion per year, taking six times in welfare what they pay in taxes.

So, how did it get so bad?

Before the 1960s, immigration was lean and quality was high. America banned migrants who were likely to go on welfare (and Communists), while national quotas favored Northern and Western Europe.

This changed in the Hart-Celler Act, which abolished national origin rules, replaced them with family reunification policies instead of cream-skimming the highly skilled. Instead of high-quality migrants, the system shifted to poor countries that have massive families—one person got in and the whole village had a pass.

This, combined with the 1960s welfare state—President Lyndon B. Johnson’s so-called Great Society—created a trillion-dollar magnet that drew in tens of millions of third-worlders. So Hart-Celler opened the barn doors, then welfare called the entire world to feast.

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Annual legal immigration went from 200,000 to over 1 million, and that’s not counting illegal aliens. America’s foreign-born population went from 5% of the population in 1969 to one in five, but it’s one in four if counting illegals. They now make up one-third of welfare cases that were meant for poor Americans.

When a Republican Congress passed welfare reform in the 1990s, half of the savings came from kicking immigrants off those welfare programs. If people wanted to come to the U.S., they had to work. Unfortunately, those reforms were later reversed.

Today, President Trump has been focusing on illegal aliens, as he should, but we also need to fix an immigration system that imports 540 welfare cases for every one of the world’s top 1% that we import.

Restricting migration once again to Europe and maybe Japan, Korea and Taiwan isn’t going to happen. But we can do what Japan, Korea and Taiwan do, which is an immigrant points system, so you take only the best. All three of those countries use a mixture of education, salary, concrete skills (IT, finance, science), investment capital, and a history of starting successful businesses.

This weeds out the welfare cases, most of the criminals, and it turns immigrants into an asset who build more jobs—and pay more taxes—than they take. Cherry-picking also reduces the number of migrants since there are only so many cherries in the world.

Democrats will fight it tooth and nail, of course, but America cannot be the world’s welfare office and still remain a middle-class country.