43 Immigration Quotes

I came to America because of the great, great freedom which I heard existed in this country. I made a mistake in selecting America as a land of freedom, a mistake I cannot repair in the balance of my lifetime.

Without comprehension, the immigrant would forever remain shut-a stranger in America. Until America can release the heart as well as train the hand of the immigrant, he would forever remain driven back upon himself, corroded by the very richness of the unused gifts within his soul.

I wanted to talk to very young kids about self-image and about being different and how that can be your strength, especially from the immigrant perspective.

The separation of families to me is very close to my heart because we lived that as immigrants. I strongly feel that we all connected, and having felt people's love and support first-hand through difficult moments in my life, makes me feel it's our responsibility to help one another. I am privileged to help in some way, and I will always take that opportunity.

America is God's Crucible, the great Melting-Pot where all the races of Europe are melting and re-forming!

Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave the country.

If we had those 40 million children that were [aborted] over the last 30 years, we wouldn't need the illegal immigrants to fill the jobs that they are doing today.

There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism:. The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities.

'It is important for me, as a popular artist, to make clear to the governments of the United States and Mexico that despite the strategy of fear and intimidation to foreigners, despite their weapons, despite their immigration laws and military reserves, they will never be able to isolate the Zapatista communities from the people in the United States.'

People are really rather afraid that this country might be rather swamped by people with a different culture ... We are not in politics to ignore peoples' worries: we are in politics to deal with them.

Our attitude toward immigration reflects our faith in the American ideal. We have always believed it possible for men and women who start at the bottom to rise as far as their talent and energy allow. Neither race nor place of birth should affect their chances.

I'd build a wall. In fact, I'd hire illegal immigrants to build the wall. And throw out the illegals who are here. [...] It's cheap labor.

If the defenders of privilege desire to exclude from this country the opponents of privilege, they should see to it that Congress omits the taking of the eleventh census. For the eleventh census, if taken, will undoubtedly emphasize these two lessons of the tenth: first, that foreign immigration does not increase dishonesty and violence among us, but does increase the love of liberty; second, that the population of the world is gradually dividing into two classes, Anarchists and criminals.

'I could be the first black president. I mean I don't think anyone would hurt me; some people might want to hurt me, but I don't think they'd touch me. Because my vice president would be Mexican for a little 'insurance.' I mean you can shoot me, but you're just gonna open up the border.'

Nobody who has lived through the rise of the violent anti-Semitism which led to Hitler can refuse Mrs. Thatcher admiration for her courageous and outspoken warning. When I grew up in Vienna the established Jewish families were a generally respected group and all decent people would frown upon the occasional anti-Jewish outbursts of a few popular politicians. It was the sudden influx of large numbers of Galician and Polish Jews [during World War I]...which in a short period changed the attitude. They were too visibly different to be readily absorbed.

The third part of our plan to strengthen border enforcement is to stop people from crossing the border illegally in the first place. (5 December 2005)

When I first came to Miami [in 1959], you'd see signs like 'No Children, No Pets, No Cubans.' We were a major threat. We lived in a very small apartment behind the Orange Bowl, where all the Cubans lived. All the men (including my father, Jose Manuel Fajardo) were political prisoners in Cuba, and it was purely women and their kids. There was one car the whole community bought for $50, and the one lady that could drive would take everybody to the supermarket and the Laundromat.

[My forthcoming book features] Noelle's experience as a loveable, yet very unconventional looking dog, who must find her way through life in her new adopted home, feeling different and confronting a bevy of clustered animal cliques whose ultimate reluctance to include Noelle in their world is soon offset by Noelle's true, albeit hidden, beauty. [I hope it has] special resonance with the immigrant communities in the United States (primarily of Hispanic heritage) who may, like Noelle, feel they culturally do not, and will not, fit in with a culture so foreign from their own.

However long we live here, however much I feel at home in Miami, I -- like everyone else -- am an exile, an exile who cannot go home.

The United States stands tall, representing a parade of nations, 300 million strong. That number will grow during today's citizenship ceremony, featuring the national anthem performed by pop star Gloria Estefan. She captures the essence of what makes this country so great: Ms. Estefan arrived from Cuba as a 2-year-old and would eventually chase her amitions of becoming a singer. She would incorporate salsa into mainstream American music, reflecting the true meaning of this country as a melting pot.

The Irishman, finding himself in another environment, outside Ireland, very often knows how to make his worth felt. The economic and intellectual conditions of his homeland do not permit the individual to develop. The spirit of the country has been weakened by centuries of useless struggle and broken treaties. Individual initiative has been paralyzed by the influence and admonitions of the church, while the body has been shackled by peelers, duty officers and soldiers. No self-respecting person wants to stay in Ireland. Instead he will run from it, as if from a country that has been subjected to a visitation by an angry Jove.

I hear America sometimes playfully accused of sending you all your storms, and am in the habit of parrying the charge by alleging that we are enabled to do this because, in virtue of our protective system, we can afford to make better bad weather than anybody else. And what wiser use could we make of it than to export it in return for the paupers which some European countries are good enough to send over to us who have not attained to the same skill in the manufacture of them?

Now let us turn our attention to another and entirely unrepresented community - the Indian. He is in striking contrast with the native. While the native has been of little benefit to the State, it owes its prosperity largely to the Indians. While native loafers abound on every side, that species of humanity is almost unknown among Indians here.

If people are going to come and live in this country they've got to be British, they've got to be loyal to Britain.

All of us, from the wealthiest to the young children that I have seen in this country, in this year, bloated by starvation - we all share one precious possession, and that is the name American. It is not easy to know what that means. But, in part, to be an American means to have been an outcast and a stranger, to have come from the exiles' country, and to know that he who denies the outcast and the stranger still amongst us, he also denies America.

In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.

When compared with the suppression of anarchy every other question sinks into insignificance. The anarchist is the enemy of humanity, the enemy of all mankind, and his is a deeper degree of criminality than any other. No immigrant is allowed to come to our shores if he is an anarchist; and no paper published here or abroad should be permitted circulation in this country if it propagates anarchist opinions.

'They say that as soon as the wall in Germany fell that the US government was busy building another one at the border between the US and Mexico. Since 1986 as a result of a lot of the hate talk and histeriam that the government of the United States has been speaking, 1500 bodies have been found on the border. We wrote this song in response to it. It's called Without a Face.'

I'm singing the hardest song [the national anthem] you could possibly sing at this hour of the morning [8 a.m.]. [I came from Cuba] when I was sixteen months old, although I didn't become a citizen until I was actually about 9 or 10 years old [1966-67]. I had to leave the country to become a citizen, because we had to go to Canada -- and I'll never forget that trip as long as I live. But it was very important for me then, and for them [new citizens] today, What more special day can you have: July 4th in the American Mecca. It doesn't get better than that for them. Well, I'll tell you this -- and I can base it on my own feelings. The beauty of this country is that you can become a citizen of this wonderful nation, and still keep who you are: your culture, your lifestyle. It's a melting pot that allows you not to melt if you don't want to. And it's a wonderful place. I love this country. I really admire it: its ideals, the freedom, the things it stands for. As an immigrant that came from a country that doesn't have those freedoms and still doesn't have them -- which is Cuba -- it's much more special to me: To be able to live here and to be able to have the life that I do in this country.

My mother, my dad and I left Cuba when I was two [January, 1959]. Castro had taken control by then, and life for many ordinary people had become very difficult. My dad had worked [as a personal bodyguard for the wife of Cuban president Batista], so he was a marked man. We moved to Miami, which is about as close to Cuba as you can get without being there. It's a Cuba-centric society. I think a lot of Cubans moved to the US thinking everything would be perfect. Personally, I have to say that those early years were not particularly happy. A lot of people didn't want us around, and I can remember seeing signs that said: 'No children. No pets. No Cubans.' Things were not made easier by the fact that Dad had begun working for the US government. At the time he couldn't really tell us what he was doing, because it was some sort of top-secret operation. He just said he wanted to fight against what was happening back at home. [Estefan's father was one of the many Cuban exiles taking part in the ill-fated, anti-Castro Bay of Pigs invasion to overthrow dictator Fidel Castro.] One night, Dad disappered. I think he was so worried about telling my mother he was going that he just left her a note. There were rumours something was happening back home, but we didn't really know where Dad had gone. It was a scary time for many Cubans. A lot of men were involved -- lots of families were left without sons and fathers. By the time we found out what my dad had been doing, the attempted coup had taken place, on April 17, 1961. Intitially he'd been training in Central America, but after the coup attempt he was captured and spent the next wo years as a political prisoner in Cuba. That was probably the worst time for my mother and me. Not knowing what was going to happen to Dad. I was only a kid, but I had worked out where my dad was. My mother was trying to keep it a secret, so she used to tell me Dad was on a farm. Of course, I thought that she didn't know what had really happened to him, so I used to keep up the pretence that Dad really was working on a farm. We used to do this whole pretending thing every day, trying to protect each other. Those two years had a terrible effect on my mother. She was very nervous, just going from church to church. Always carrying her rosary beads, praying her little heart out. She had her religion, and I had my music. Music was in our family. My mother was a singer, and on my father's side there was a violinist and a pianist. My grandmother was a poet.

Our attitude toward immigration reflects our faith in the American ideal. We have always believed it possible for men and women who start at the bottom to rise as far as their talent and energy allow. Neither race nor place of birth should affect their chances.

This bloke who pinned a note on a door, saying 'Hang on a minute!' But in German, so: 'Ein minuten bitte! Ich habe eine kleinen problemo avec diese religiones.' [pause] He was from everywhere.

Immigrants used to come to America seeking freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom from government. Now they come looking for free health care, free education, and a free lunch.

Let's just get to the political heart of the matter, No matter what you want to call it, beyond border enforcement, a lot of people, particularly on our side, don't want to have a debate about this. Even if you debate it, you're wrong. Even if you're open-minded about compromise, you're wrong. It's a very simple answer to a complex problem. Send them all back. End of discussion, end of debate. Now that to me is not a realistic approach to a real problem.

We send missionaries to China so the Chinese can get to heaven, but we won't let them into our country.

When I came to the states in the mid 1960s - 1964, 1964 - I didn't think I'd be here maybe a couple years, going to have a great experience in the United States and then go back to Canada. Well, here we are 40 years later.

The Democratic Party is the party that opened its arms. We opened them to every nationality, every creed. We opened them to the immigrants. The Democratic Party is the party of the people.

You are suffering from the unrestricted imports of cheaper goods. You are suffering also from the unrestricted immigration of the people who make these goods...The evils of this immigration have increased during recent years. And behind those people who have already reached these shores, remember there are millions of the same kind who, under easily conceivable circumstances, might follow in their track, and might invade this country in a way and to an extent of which few people have at present any conception...But the party of free importers is against any reform. How could they be otherwise? They are perfectly consistent. If sweated goods are to be allowed in this country without restriction, why not the people who make them? Where is the difference? There is no difference either in the principle or in the results. It all comes to the same thing - less labour for the British working man.

What is seldom discussed in the immigration debate, unfortunately, is the incentives the US government provides for people to enter the United States illegally. As we know well, when the government subsidizes something we get more of it. The government provides a myriad of federal welfare benefits to those who come to the US illegally, including food stamps and free medical care. Is this a way to discourage people from coming to the US illegally? [...] Immigration reform should start with improving our border protection, yet it was reported last week that the federal government has approved the recruitment of 120 of our best trained Border Patrol agents to go to Iraq to train Iraqis how to better defend their borders! This comes at a time when the National Guard troops participating in Operation Jump Start are being removed from border protection duties in Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas and preparing to deploy to Iraq and Afghanistan! It is an outrage and it will result in our borders being more vulnerable to illegal entry, including by terrorists.

Paul is not an anti-capitalist... Paul opposes the separation of Church and State... Ron Paul loathes black people... he is a hate-spewing presidential candidate aligned with some of the most blatant, odious racists on the planet... In Paul's fuzzy logic, all immigrants are here to suck the country dry of its welfare, education and emergency healthcare systems. If it was up to Paul, those systems would be voided for not only undocumented, but for documented immigrants as well... he is a candidate that hates immigrants.