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That was always a lie
My grandparents and great grandparents came to the US with almost nothing, as the voyage alone cost a life's savings.
But the 19th century American economy had just finished Native genocide. We had enormous undeveloped tracks of land and a party - The Republicans - eager to goose the economy with settlers willing to do the hard parts of domestic development for next to nothing.
Rapidly populating the interior with European migrants was a post-Civil War power play, intended to secure territories with party loyal serfs and turn expensive frontier territory into profitable industrial centers.
"Give me your cheap exploitable migrant labor, yearning to work 16 hour days for less than the cost of living" might have been a more accurate phrasing. But the policy of open borders (for Europeans) was real.
*tracts of land
Yeah, I mostly meant that last part. You weren't gonna get ahead here unless you were a rich white land owning slaver. This idea that the U.S. is or was some bastion of hope and freedom is a straight up lie.
"Free" land was a huge step up from being a serf or a conscript in some European fief. Also, the US was one of the first western nations to implement public education, un-tolled roadways, and public utilities. But you were still a cog in a much larger machine. You just had a bit more autonomy than someone "bound to the land" or otherwise pinned in by rival military powers.
I mean, it wasn't free, we killed all the people who lived here and stole their land. Much more accurate description of what really happened.
Hence the quotes.
The primary reason for the genocide and subsequent settler occupation was to establish a more pliant population. Initially, that was through the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (the Haitian island being the Ur-example - exterminate the natives and kidnap people across the ocean to press gang into service). European migration became a more "free market" alternative.
But the European migration worked in large part because Europeans were fleeing the same kind of Haitian-tier exploitation in Europe. For European refugees (many of whom fled the 30 Years, Napoleonic, and WW1 eras of conflict) the US was absolutely a step up.
It was French trolling.