Like Rome, we boast a tolerance for immigrants of all backgrounds, insisting that equality will belong to all within our borders. However, we limit the freedoms and privileges of noncitizens and especially punish those who enter the country through illegal means. Imperial Rome treated outsiders equally, Roman non-citizens lived in the poorest neighborhoods of the city, could not afford to apply for citizenship and therefore could not remedy their situation. This involves a partial comparison of the destruction of the middle class. Rome's middle class was flooded with cheap slave labor from overseas not long before its fall. The United States has seen a similar decline, particularly in job losses to workers from abroad who are significantly lower paid and have fewer rights. Rather than absorbing them into the people group, we insist that they be separated, just as Rome tried to do