Somewhat similar events happened around the 1880s with illegal Chinese immigrants. They forged papers to come over here, but without them our railroad system might have never been built.

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/chinex.htm
http://sun.menloschool.org/~mbrody/u...exclusion_act/
http://library.thinkquest.org/20619/Chinese.html