Immigrants Quotes - Page 14

• Yet when the blood of the sons of immigrants and the grandsons of slaves fell on foreign fields, it was American blood. In it you could not read the ethnic particulars of the soldier who died next to you. He was an American. And when I think of how we learned this lesson, I wonder how we could have unlearned it.

  Bob Dole

  Dream, Morning, Father

  "Text of Robert Dole's Speech To The Republican National Convention August 15, 1996". www.cnn.com.

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• One thing that's really interesting is not only the magnitude of the recent immigration into this country, but also its distribution and its investment in the country. About 9.3 percent of the population is now foreign-born [announced by the Census Bureau at over 10 percent a few days later]. What's really surprising is how well distributed those population groups are. Historically, we see new immigrants primarily on the coast and in a few big cities. I think the data are going to show a much wider distribution of the new population groups than we've experienced historically.

  Kenneth Prewitt

  Country, Thinking, Data

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• We've seen those results in generations of Muslim immigrants - farmers and factory workers, helping to lay the railroads and build our cities, the Muslim innovators who helped build some of our highest skyscrapers and who helped unlock the secrets of our universe.

  Barack Obama

  Cities, Mind Blowing, Secret

  "Obama Celebrates Ramadan: 'Islam Has Contributed To The Character Of Our Country'" by Ian Schwartz, www.realclearpolitics.com. July 26, 2013.

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• The system isn't working when 12 million people live in hiding, and hundreds of thousands cross our borders illegally each year; when companies hire undocumented immigrants instead of legal citizens to avoid paying overtime or to avoid a union; when communities are terrorized by ICE immigration raids -- when nursing mothers are torn from their babies, when children come home from school to find their parents missing, when people are detained without access to legal counsel. When all that's happening, the system just isn't working.

  Barack Obama

  Mother, Baby, Children

  Barack Obama's Addresse to the National Council of La Raza, www.washingtonpost.com. July 15, 2008.

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• Number one, it is important that we fix the legal immigration system, because right now we've got a backlog that means years for people to apply legally. And what's worse is, we keep on increasing the fees, so that if you've got a hard working immigrant family, they've got to hire a lawyer; they've got to pay thousands of dollars in fees. They just can't afford it. And it's discriminatory against people who have good character, we should want in this country, but don't have the money. So we've got to fix that.

  Barack Obama

  Country, Character, Mean

  Transcript: Democratic debate in Austin, Texas, www.nytimes.com. December 2, 2008.

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• American taxpayers will be forced to foot the bill for the overwhelming costs of amnesty. Under current law, once 11 million illegal immigrants receive probationary status, they will immediately have access to federal benefits like Social Security and Obamacare coverage. If we thought we had a problem with government spending before, just wait.

  Lamar S. Smith

  Government, Law, Obamacare

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• It would cost Americans their jobs when they have to compete with millions of more [immigrants] for scarce jobs.

  Lamar S. Smith

  Jobs, Immigration, Cost

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• Any new pathway to citizenship is completely off the table ... [Illegal immigrants should be able to get citizenship] the same way as any other immigrant has to do it ... You have to apply for legal permanent residence, be it family-based or employment-based. You shouldn't be treated worse than the people doing it the right way, but I think it would be unconscionable for us to treat them better than the people who are doing it the right way.

  Raul Labrador

  Thinking, People, Pathways

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• He had 'deep concerns' with the pathway to citizenship for the nation's 11 million illegal immigrants under consideration by the group, calling it 'profoundly unfair' to legal immigrants.

  Ted Cruz

  Pathways, Immigration, Groups

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• Let's start that conversation by acknowledging we aren't going to deport 12 million illegal immigrants. If you wish to work, if you wish to live and work in America, then we will find a place for you.

  Rand Paul

  America, Wish, Immigration

  "Rand Paul signals willingness to engage in immigration reform debate" by Tom McCarthy, www.theguardian.com. March 19, 2013.

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• We have a ways to go here, but elections have consequences ... I think that our Republican colleagues, the Republican National Party, understands this is our new demographic in America as a result of the election. I think they understand if they want to be a national party, they're going to have to deal with this issue. For Latinos and other immigrants, this is the civil rights issue of our time.

  Bob Menendez

  Party, Thinking, Rights

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• I am confident - very confident - that if I help solve this problem in a way that we won't have 20 million illegal immigrants 20 years from now, not only will I get re-elected, I can look back and say I was involved in something that was important.

  Lindsey Graham

  Years, Important, Immigration

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• The United States needs to be made more appealing to legal immigrants.

  Mitt Romney

  Needs, Immigration, United States

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• Giving tuition breaks to the children of illegal immigrants needs to stop.

  Mitt Romney

  Children, Giving, Needs

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• Illegal immigrants should be required to return to their home country.

  Mitt Romney

  Country, Home, Return

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• An employer verification system must be implemented to ensure jobs are not given to illegal immigrants.

  Mitt Romney

  Jobs, Immigration, Illegal

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• It is a commonplace of American life that immigrants have made our country great and continue to make a very important contribution to the fabric of American life. But...under the pressures we face today, we can't afford to lose control of our borders, or to take on new financial burdens, at a time when we are not adequately providing for the jobs, the health care, and the education of our own people. Therefore, immigration must be a priority for this administration.

  William J. Clinton

  Country, Jobs, People

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• [It] has a lot of things in it that I like, but I think it's way too hard on financing things from immigrants.

  William J. Clinton

  Thinking, Immigration, Way

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• Mr. Speaker, our Nation depends on immigrants' labor, and I hope we can create an immigration system as dependable as they are.

  Luis Gutierrez

  Immigration, Dependable, Labor

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• For all the noise and anger that too often surrounds the immigration debate, America has nothing to fear from today's immigrants. They have come here for the same reason that families have always come here-for the hope that in America, they could build a better life for themselves and their families. Like the waves of immigrants that came before them and the Hispanic Americans whose families have been here for generations, the recent arrival of Latino immigrants will only enrich our country.

  Barack Obama

  Country, America, Immigration

  Barack Obama's Remarks to NALEO, www.realclearpolitics.com. June 28, 2008.

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• Old or young, healthy as a horse or a person with a disability that hasn't kept you down, man or woman, Native American, native born, immigrant, straight or gay - whatever; the test ought to be I believe in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence. I believe in religious liberty. I believe in freedom of speech. I believe in working hard and playing by the rules. I'm showing up for work tomorrow. I'm building that bridge to the 21st century. That ought to be the test.

  William J. Clinton

  Religious, Horse, Believe

  Clinton, William J. (1997). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton, 1995”, p.1417, Best Books on

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• America is the civilization of people engaged in transforming themselves. In the past, the stars of the performance were the pioneer and the immigrant. Today, it is youth and the Black.

  Harold Rosenberg

  Change, Stars, Past

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• Those who are most sensitive about "politically incorrect" terminology are not the average black ghetto-dweller, Asian immigrant, abused woman or disabled person, but a minority of activists, many of whom do not even belong to any "oppressed" group but come from privileged strata of society.

  Theodore Kaczynski

  Ghetto, Average, Black

  Theodore J. Kaczynski (2010). “Technological Slavery: The Collected Writings of Theodore J. Kaczynski, a.k.a.”, p.41, Feral House

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• We know from our recent history that English did not come to replace U.S. Indian languages merely because English sounded musical to Indians' ears. Instead, the replacement entailed English-speaking immigrants' killing most Indians by war, murder, and introduced diseases, and the surviving Indians' being pressured into adopting English, the new majority language.

  Jared Diamond

  War, Musical, Majority

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• Probably all of us, writers and readers alike, set out into exile, or at least into a certain kind of exile, when we leave childhood behind...The immigrant, the nomad, the traveler, the sleepwalker all exist, but not the exile, since every writer becomes an exile simply by venturing into literature, and every reader becomes an exile simply by opening a book.

  Roberto Bolano

  Book, Childhood, Literature

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