The difference you're talking about is financial. I was speaking of the discrimination they faced by society at large, and the idea they couldn't be patriotic, which is what the person I was responding to was talking about.

I am interested in what benefits an immigrant gets, that poor/homeless born Americans couldn't get as well, though.

PS, although the movie was fiction (durrrr), the xenophobia, conflict between Catholics and Protestants, rival gangs, and the beginning of the "Know Nothing" party was based on history of the time and region.