What does the term American Dream means today?

What does the term American Dream means today?
In light of the immigration issues being talk about in newspapers and cable. I will like to initiate this thread to get a pulse of what is in the mind of the members of this forum on this issue. Since this is such a broad issue I will like to start discussing the fact that thousand of pregnant women are coming in to this country illegally or through regular’s channels (using visas) for the sole purpose of conceiving the child in U.S. territory so the child can be an American Citizen. I know this first hand since lots of my friends have family members that do this. It will be easy to understand that Mexicans would cross the border and give birth to a U.S. citizen in L.A. or Texas. What I am talking about is getting a Visa which by itself is pretty hard and expensive to get in developing countries. Then buying a ticket ranging from $200 to $600, depending where the person is coming from. It seems to me that some of the reasons to do this are more than economical since is quite expansive to travel to the U.S. Are this people perhaps doing a sacrifice to allow their child to live the American Dream? If so what does this dream entails? Is reality for this immigrants living up to the Dream they came to chase?
Please elaborate on any conspiracy theories. I did some research and found out the term American Dream was first used by some writer back in the 1800's sounds like propaganda.

Ok,

Here's the Dictionary definition:

A·mer·i·can dream or A·mer·i·can Dream

noun
Definitions:

Traditional U.S. social ideals: the idea that everyone in the United States has the chance to achieve success and prosperity.

People are attracted to this, and have hopes and dreams of achieving this....they come here because there is no where else with this kind of opportunity?

Faeryland

"Traditional U.S. social ideals: the idea that everyone in the United States has the chance to achieve success and prosperity.

People are attracted to this, and have hopes and dreams of achieving this....they come here because there is no where else with this kind of opportunity?"

I totally agree! that is the reason why they come here. Although, it really doesn't make sense to me why they don't just stay in there original countries and try to achieve the same success and prosperity. Affter all in order to achive succes and prosperity in the U.S. even if succes could be measure with one day purchasing a house, this entails workship, responsability, determination and skills of some type. I am pretty sure their countries could use some of those atributes to better their communities.

Yep, totally agree. It seems like their is so much anti-US sentiment and so much pro-whatever-country-your-from type attitudes that more people would want to stay in their country? It's kind of confusing to me, either the US isn't as hated (afterall, why come to a country that you hate? I certainly wouldn't move to Iran) as is reported or there's some sort of weird conspiracy going on. People should definately start staying in their own country and improving their regions because a strong worldwide community is better for everyone. The US can't keep footing the bill for everyone forever, at some point some of these backwards countries need to start developing their infrastructure.