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Settlers vs immigrants seems like semantics, and if the author wants to accuse a large group of lying off that back of that semantic difference he probably needs to bring a lot more evidence to the game (and as you are posting it without comment, by extension that means you need to bring more evidence I think, or perhaps you are the author? More commentary needed to clarify there).
For a start your interpretation seems to suggest that if I emigrated to the United States with no intention of joining the existing society, then I am a settler and not an immigrant. So the more I don't want to assimilate the more I fit in with the founding ethos of the US? That seems somewhat suspect logically.
Legally of course it's a distinction without a difference. The US government is unlikely to accept my excuse that I am not immigrating but rather settling as I move in my extended Scottish clan. For your argument to hinge on there being a difference in some kind of moral way I think you need to do a lot more work on fleshing out that section. Other than wanting to assimilate vs keeping yourself apart what are the differences practically?
For another, let's say we accept your premise. The US is not a nation of immigrants it is a nation of settlers. Ok, so now your opponents nod sagely and say Ok, then let us allow more people to come in and settle. What does that actually change? Do you think it will change their argument outside of a simple word change? Or they symbolically gift a square foot of Montana to each person like buying a lairdship or a piece of the moon? Would you then tip your cap and say "Well I guess they are settlers now, my argument has been torpedoed!" Somehow I would doubt it. Which means the settlers vs immigrant dichotomy (real or not) is not the fundamental issue at stake.
The fundamental idea that the US was founded by groups of people who travelled to build new lives there from some other location. That is what people mean when they say a nation of immigrants. Whether they are semantically settlers or colonists or immigrants is really orthogonal to WHY people make that argument and what they are justifying (correctly or not).
Add that in with a whole bunch of leftist bashing (which is really irrelevant to the central logical claim that is trying to be proven (that settling is not the same as immigrating) and should probably have been excised for posting here). And it is a thumbs down from me I am afraid.
I'd suggest revisiting that central claim, cut out all the unrelated rhetorical attacks and try to build a logical structure as to whether settling and immigration are practically different and if so how. Try to buttress that argument because it is the central spine of the whole piece and it currently is not strong enough to support the weight. Repackage it for the Motte a little better perhaps as well with some commentary.
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