quotations about illegal immigration
I would just say it's not good for the country to have 11 million people here who we don't know who they are, where they're living. They're not paying taxes, but they're showing up in emergency rooms. They're driving up the cost of auto insurance 'cause they don't have driver's licenses and are getting into accidents. They're having children, which are US citizens. So, I mean, it's an issue that needs to be dealt with.
MARCO RUBIO
interview with Rush Limbaugh, Apr. 18, 2013
Illegal immigrants are to immigration what shoplifters are to shopping.
ANONYMOUS
When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people. But I speak to border guards and they tell us what we're getting. And it only makes common sense. It only makes common sense. They're sending us not the right people. It's coming from more than Mexico. It's coming from all over South and Latin America, and it's coming probably -- probably -- from the Middle East. But we don't know. Because we have no protection and we have no competence, we don't know what's happening. And it's got to stop and it's got to stop fast.
DONALD TRUMP
speech announcing his candidacy for U.S. president, The Washington Post, June 16, The Washington Post, June 16, 2015
These days, it feels to me like you make a devil's pact when you walk into this country. You hand over your passport at the check-in, you get stamped, you want to make a little money, get yourself started... but you mean to go back! Who would want to stay? Cold, wet, miserable; terrible food, dreadful newspapers - who would want to stay? In a place where you are never welcomed, only tolerated. Just tolerated. Like you are an animal finally house-trained.
ZADIE SMITH
White Teeth
I am in between. Trying to write to be understood by those who matter to me, yet also trying to push my mind with ideas beyond the everyday. It is another borderland I inhabit. Not quite here nor there. On good days I feel I am a bridge. On bad days I just feel alone.
SERGIO TRONCOSO
Crossing Borders: Personal Essays
I think the American people have a generous instinct. They understand that we're a nation of immigrants. But if those folks are going to live in this country, they have to be put on a pathway to citizenship that involves them paying a fine, making sure that they are at the back of the line and not cutting in front of people who applied legally to come into the country.
BARACK OBAMA
Larry King Live, Oct. 19, 2006
Legal immigration is good for America, if it's controlled and structured via the legal process, of course. But the problem is the system we have in place right now is broken. For example, it is completely family based which means that it's based not on what you can do or what talent you have or what merit you bring or what job you could fill, but rather on whether you know someone who already lives here.
MARCO RUBIO
interview with Rush Limbaugh, Apr. 18, 2013
Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
remarks to the Daughters of the American Revolution, Apr. 21, 1938
It's one thing to consider immigration reform as a theoretical policy issue, and another to meet real people whose lives are impacted by it. As a senator, I interact with people who flat-out tell you, "Look, my kids were hungry. And I am going to do what it takes to feed them." You think, "If I had been in that position, would I have done something different?"
MARCO RUBIO
"Marco Rubio's Modern Family," Parade Magazine, Sep. 5, "Marco Rubio's Modern Family," Parade Magazine, Sep. 5, 2013
Any elected American official who permits, encourages, or justifies illegal entry into the United States has breached his or her oath to be loyal to the Constitution. And it is inexcusable, for he or she has slept through two centuries of history as successive waves of foreigners have legally transitioned from pluribus to unum. No other nation in the world has been as generous as the United States of America in welcoming legal aliens to enter our shores.... In spite of that, illegal immigration is used by greedy business men and their defenders in Congress to and with the blessing of the Christian churches, to subvert legal American wages and delay development in Third World nations.
PATRICK BASCIO
On the Immorality of Illegal Immigration
History shows that it is not only senseless and cruel, but also difficult to state who is a foreigner.
CLAUDIO MAGRIS
Danube
No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark.
WARSAN SHIRE
Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth
Immigration policy has been captured by an unholy alliance that links religious organizations, ethnic groups, libertarian economists, and the powerful American Immigration Lawyers' Association--all of whom have self-interests and financial interests in maintaining the status quo--with corporate America (ranging from agribusiness to the garment industry to the health care industry to the computer industry), which has vested interests in perpetuating cheap labor policies.
VERNON M. BRIGGS
Immigration and American Unionism
Most people think illegal immigrants are people who have entered illegally. However, people who entered legally but stayed after their visa expired, such as students or tourists whose visas permitted only a limited stay, are illegal immigrants, too. So are people who entered legally but disobeyed the visa's terms--for example, people with student visas who took jobs--and people who lied to get their visa.
JANET LEVY
Illegal Immigration and Amnesty: Open Borders and National Security
They say there are about 12 million illegal immigrants in this country. But if you ask a native American, that number is more like 300 million.
DAVID LETTERMAN
attributed, The Biteback Dictionary of Humorous Political Quotations
Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
EMMA LAZARUS
"The New Colossus"
A nation that cannot control its borders is not a nation.
RONALD REAGAN
attributed, International Security: A Very Short Introduction
The most effective way to stop illegal immigration is by imposing severe consequences for employers who violate the law.
KAREN KENNEY
Illegal Immigration
The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations And Religions; whom we shall wellcome to a participation of all our rights and previleges, if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
letter to the members of the Volunteer Association and other Inhabitants of the Kingdom of Ireland who have lately arrived in the City of New York, December 2, 1783
The mass abuse of the nation's generous political asylum policy as a pretext for illegal immigration must be stopped. The only way to do so is to require the detention of most asylum applicants until their cases are heard and resolved. This will be costly, but so is the entry of illegal immigrants and the adverse human toll they exact on the well-being of low-skilled American workers.
VERNON M. BRIGGS
Immigration and American Unionism