Also, since we are a taxed nation, I believe in preserving the integrity of our sovereignty and that means secure borders and merit-based immigration. I don't let my neighbors' dogs eat my dogs' food, so why should I be ok with the government doing that with my money?
I mostly believe what you say, but I'd say the above is a contradiction to fiscal conservatism to a degree. Yes, immigrants by their nature do take advantage of various services (roads, police, etc) that they don't necessarily pay for immediately or ever. But over any reasonable period of time, they'll start paying taxes and then income taxes because people need to eat, have shelter, etc and they'll either (1) work for it or (2) import the money and spend it. The simple truth is in the short term, the US and many other countries need more workers to fulfill the social security ratio hole. In the long term (which legally needs changed now), social security needs to greatly reduced to accommodate a realistic ratio of workers to beneficiaries.
Beyond taxes, it's illogical to suggest that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are ideals that constrained to the borders of the USA. If goods can be imported to the US towards those end*, it stands to reason services and people should be allowed to follow as well for the same ends*. This is rather the cornerstone of capitalism and libertarianism: goods and people are part of the economic engine and the free movement of both is the cornerstone of a free market. It's little surprise then that, short of some exceptions**, immigration (even mass immigration) is beneficial to the host country because it causes a market correction that overall is beneficial to society.
Personally, though, it comes down to liberty to me. No government owns me and shouldn't be allowed to forbid me from entering or leaving without specific reason: criminal action even would be reason for detainment, not deportation and exile. If I can't find a way to survive legally wherever I go, I'll just have to move again--possibly back to where I was from--regardless of whether I cross a border or not along the way. Caging people in or out is its own sort of prison. I know realistically there's a limit to this from a practical perspective and always some risk of fifth invasion or the like, so I can understand some need for a quota system or the like. Clearly, though, the quota system we have now has little bearing on those concerns.
* Pursuit of happiness != property, but from a practical perspective in today's economy and considered the lack of frontier land to claim, people have to work in some fashion to live in a country for an extended period of time --barring some immense wealth. So, one way or the other people will work and spend money and taxes will be collected. One can argue the idea that taxes will go up to compensate for the time delay between immigrants using services vs paying for them or them being in low paying jobs not contributing as much, but that holds true for children as well, and we don't use that as an argument for government controlling family size. Besides, government will, if it can get voters to flaccidly agree, find a way to justify its spending and taxes as it pleases.
** There's always exceptions, except for the rule of there's always exceptions.
Seriously, though, there have been studies that show the overall result that immigration economically benefits society. It's just something that might take a generation or two to fully kick in. Honestly, though, since I'm more concerned about the liberty issue than the economic one, it doesn't matter to me as much if we "suffer" the exception. I don't have a notion of US society as a static thing that immigration may destroy. I think that's just an illusion, like most things in life.