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Governments, like that of the US, are inefficient in providing long-term aid.
The other killer problem is the complexity of the situations in the poor countries. Many African nations and people groups will continue to suffer horrible poverty as long as members of different tribes keep murdering each other. Also, anywhere there are disease epidemics like AIDS people are going to have serious difficulty trying to change their lives. Jumping onto the industrialization bandwagon is harder and more expensive the later you do it, so it may not be possible to industrialize a lot more nations without significant improvements in pure science. (Pure science leading to radical paradigm shifts, I mean.) As a final example, how do you prevent the humiliation and loss of dignity inherent in being helped (or ignored) by a much more prosperous nation?
I don't think immigration itself is the problem. Dieing to try for a small chance at a better life is much better than watching your family starve because your people group's enemies are hording all the food. Trying to stop immigration is futile and unhealthy. You could briefly stop it by positioning real military units on your own boarders, but the problems with that range from moral (murdering helpless people as they try to cross) to practical (over time the soldiers would become ineffective, disatisfied, maybe compromised).
The US economy benefits from immigration so we would be hurting ourselves anyway. Probably the best way for the US government to help potential immigrants is to allow a lot more into the country. Short of a series of natural disasters, that would help our economy by increasing the number of consumers, improving our pool of ideas, and giving us a steady stream of cheap, hardworking labor.
You suggest fixing the problems in poor countries. Private organizations do it better than governments. If every US citizen gave a small fraction of their money to an effective relief and construction organization things would actually get better.
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