At least not in the eyes of those holding power they weren't. They were misfits, heretics, radicals and/or impoverished if not literally enslaved. Many were considered criminals and/or subversives. Our nation was founded in large part by people who were seen as "cultists" in England: Puritans, Quakers and the like. Maryland was an early refuge for Catholics who were denigrated by the British Crown. The first (non native) Americans were mostly castoffs, unwanted at home and often unable to provide for their families without fleeing their country of origin. They were virtually all refugees. As were the many generations of immigrants who followed them here. The early elites of America could never have built this nation without them.
No, the refugees who populated America supposedly weren't the best that their homelands had to offer. They didn't come here bearing great wealth. Very few of them found welcome on these shores because of the technical skills they possessed. But collectively they built one of the greatest nations the world has ever known. They had courage, they had perseverance, they had initiative, and they had the will to make a better life for their children; and in the process they built a better nation for us all.
Only the worst that America has to offer see poor people walking thousands of mile with their children and only the few possessions that they can carry on their back as a grave threat to this nation. Only the worst that America has to offer see those who flee torture, rape, starvation, and death as an invading force who threaten our security and American values.
And on top of everything else, those who fear the slow approach of "a caravan" of a few thousand hungry unarmed refugees are quite simply pathetic. Whether or not all of them should be welcomed here, whether or not all of them are walking this way for officially sanctioned reasons, they do not create a national emergency for America. Their numbers would barely add up to a halfway decent crowd at one minor league baseball game. To call them invaders is an utter farce. If history is any guide, and it damn well should be, those refugees ultimately would have far more to offer America than our nation may offer to them. These are the type people that America has always been made of. And they make America great.