Immigration

Immigration is the movement of people from one nation-state to a foreign country. While human migration has existed throughout human history, immigration implies long-term permanent residence (and often eventual citizenship) by the immigrants.

Quotes

• All Americans… are rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country. The jobs they hold might otherwise be held by citizens and legal immigrants. The public service they use impose burdens on our taxpayers. That’s why our administration has moved aggressively to secure our borders more, by hiring a record number of new border guards, by deporting twice as many criminal aliens as ever before, . . .[and] by barring welfare benefits to illegal aliens. …We will try to do more to speed the deportation of illegal aliens arrested for crimes. We are a nation of immigrants. But we are also a nation of laws.
  • Bill Clinton’s, State of the Union address (Jan. 24, 1995) [1]

• Even as we are a nation of immigrants, we are also a nation of laws. Undocumented workers broke our immigration laws. And I believe they must be held accountable, especially those who may be dangerous. That’s why over the past six years deportations of criminals are up 80 percent. And that is why we are going to keep focusing enforcement resources on actual threats to our security. Felony’s not families. Criminals not children. Gang members not a mom who is working hard for her kids.
  • Barack Obama Immigration Reform Speech on Announcing Executive Action (Nov 20, 2014) [2]

• We have to send a clear message that just because your child gets across the border that doesn’t mean the child gets to stay. So, we don’t want to send a message that is contrary to our laws or will encourage more children to make that dangerous journey.
  • Hillary Clinton, CNN Town Hall—“Hillary Clinton’s Hard Choices” (Aired June 17, 2014) [3]

• I voted for a fence, I voted, unlike most Democrats — and some of you won't like it — I voted for 700 miles of fence,… And the reason why I add that parenthetically, why I believe the fence is needed does not have anything to do with immigration as much as drugs. And let me tell you something folks, people are driving across that border with tons, tons, hear me, tons of everything from byproducts for methamphetamine to cocaine to heroin and it's all coming up through corrupt Mexico.
  • Joe Biden, South Carolina rotary club (November 27, 2006) Andrew Kaczynski, “Joe Biden once said a fence was needed to stop 'tons' of drugs from Mexico,” CNN Politics, May 10, 2019 [4]

• Solo voy con mi pena
  Sola va mi condena
  Correr es mi destino
  Para burlar la ley
  Perdido en el corazón
  De la grande Babylon
  Me dicen el clandestino
  Por no llevar papel
  
  Pa' una ciudad del norte
  Yo me fui a trabajar
  Mi vida la dejé
  Entre Ceuta y Gibraltar
  Soy una raya en el mar
  Fantasma en la ciudad
  Mi vida va prohibida
  Dice la autoridad
  • Alone I go with my grief
    Alone my curse goes
    Running is my destiny
    To get around the law
    Lost in the heart
    Of the big Babylon
    They call me the clandestine
    For not carrying papers
    
    To a northern city
    I went to work
    I left my life
    Between Ceuta and Gibraltar
    I am a line in the sea
    A ghost in the city
    My life is forbidden
    Says the authority
  • Manu Chao, Clandestino, Clandestino (1998).

• In the United States, minority populations were never an indigestible mass—with the major exceptions of the one ethnic group that did not come here voluntarily (African Americans) and those who were here when Europeans arrived (American Indians). The rest all came, clustered and dispersed, and added new cultural layers to the general society. This has always been the strength of the United States. In much of Europe, for example, Muslims have retained religious and national identities distinct from the general population, and the general population has given them little encouragement to blend. The strength of their own culture has therefore been overwhelming.
  • George Friedman, The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century, pp. 224–225, Doubleday

• It almost seems that nobody can hate America as much as native Americans. America needs new immigrants to love and cherish it.
  • Eric Hoffer, "Thoughts of Eric Hoffer, Including: 'Absolute Faith Corrupts Absolutely'", The New York Times Magazine (April 25, 1971), p. 25

• This year the senate passed an immigration reform bill by a wide bipartisan majority… It would strengthen our borders… It would make sure that everybody plays by the same rules by providing a pathway to earn citizenship for those who are living in the shadows. A path that includes passing a background check, and learning English, and paying taxes and penalties and in getting in line behind it, everyone trying to come here by the right way. And each of these pieces would go a long way toward fixing our broken immigration system. Each of them have been supported by Democrats and Republicans in the past.
  • Barack Obama speech on immigration policy in San Francisco (Nov. 25, 2014) [5]

• The immigrants they liked to hire to get work done cheap, then use them for every scapegoat situation possible, forgetting they wouldn’t even be there to blame for what they did and for what they didn’t do, if they weren’t offered the jobs in the first place.
  • Joe R. Lansdale, Bent Twig, in George R. R. Martin & Gardner Dozois (eds.) Rogues (2014), p. 110

• [F]oreigners, I esteem them no better than other people, nor any worse. It is not my nature, when I see a people borne down by the weight of their shackles-the oppression of tyranny-to make their life more bitter by heaping upon them greater burdens; but rather would I do all in my power to raise the yoke, than to add anything that would tend to crush them. Inasmuch as our country is extensive and new, and the countries of Europe are densely populated, if there are any abroad who desire to make this the land of their adoption, it is not in my heart to throw aught in their way, to prevent them from coming to the United States.
  • Abraham Lincoln, Speech to Germans at Cincinnati, Ohio (12 February 1861)

• We’ve got to do several things, and I am, adamantly against illegal immigrants. We’ve got to do more at our borders and people need to stop employing illegal immigrants.
  • Hillary Clinton interview on John Grambling radio show (Feb. 2003), PPD staff, “Hillary Was ‘Adamantly Against Illegal Immigrants’, Now Vows To ‘Go Even Further’ Than Obama,” People’sPundit Daily, May 8, 2015, [6]

• Real reform means strong border security, and we can build on the progress my Administration has already made—putting more boots on the southern border than at any time in our history, and reducing illegal crossings to their lowest levels in 40 years.
  • Barack Obama “Obama's 2013 State of the Union Speech: Full Text,” The Atlantic, Feb. 12, 2013 [7]

• [F]oreigners, I esteem foreigners no better than other people, nor any worse. They are all of the great family of men, and if there is one shackle upon any of them, it would be far better to lift the load from them than to pile additional loads upon them. And inasmuch as the continent of America is comparatively a new country, and the other countries of the world are old countries, there is more room here, comparatively speaking, than there is there; and if they can better their condition by leaving their old homes, there is nothing in my heart to forbid them coming; and I bid them all God speed.
  • Abraham Lincoln, Speech to Germans at Cincinnati, Ohio (12 February 1861)

• Remember, remember always that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.
  • Franklin D. Roosevelt, remarks before the Daughters of the American Revolution, Washington, D.C. (April 21, 1938), The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1938 (1941), p. 259. FDR is often quoted as having addressed the DAR as "my fellow immigrants." The above words are believed to be the source.

• Every man has a right to one country. He has a right to love and serve that country and to feel that it is absolutely his country and that he has in it every right possessed by anyone else. It is our duty to require the man of German blood who is an American citizen to give up all allegiance to Germany wholeheartedly and without on his part any mental reservation whatever. If he does this it becomes no less our duty to give him the full rights of an American, including our loyal respect and friendship without on our part any mental reservation whatever. The duties are reciprocal, and from the standpoint of American patriotism one is as important as the other.
  • Theodore Roosevelt, "Every Man Has a Right to One Country," The Kansas City (Missouri) Star (July 15, 1918), p. 2.

• 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), John C. Fitzpatrick, ed., The Writings of George Washington (1938), vol. 27, p. 254.

• ...he spent more time... demonizing immigrants than on any other topic.... the United States is an economy of three hundred and twenty five million people; the number of undocumented immigrants in the United States is estimated between 10 and 12 million [~3.4]% ...Focusing on immigrants is pure scapegoating; it's focusing people on something that doesn't matter because you don't want them to focus on what does matter.
  • Richard Wolffe in Wolff responds to Trump's "State of the Union" address, (6 February 2019)

External links

Quotes about immigration

Immigration Definitions