We believe that people should wait their time, and people should be able to be accepted here - over a million a year - in an orderly process, not a disorderly process, and that we should not be rewarding those who violate the law, and making even harder for those who try to comply with the law.
Amnesty will not help balance our budget ... In fact, a large-scale amnesty is likely to add trillions of dollars to the debt over time, accelerate Medicare's and Social Security's slide into insolvency and put enormous strain on our public-assistance programs.
We have history as a guide, and history suggests that this brand of comprehensive reform ... is a recipe for failure.
I think something substantial will pass out of the House at some point during this term.
Gotta have safety at our borders. We're a sovereign nation, gotta protect our borders. Make sure the workplace doesn't become a magnet for folks to be hired without the authorization. And then let's be realistic and sensible about how we approach all those folks who made America their home, established businesses, have children who have gone on to be valedictorians at their high school - and let's do these things in a very sensible way.
It is my hope that I can stand before you in two years and report back that our side, as well as the president's, found within us the ability to set differences aside, to provide relief to so many millions of Americans who simply want their life to work again.
I still believe the momentum is there to accomplish comprehensive immigration reform, and I think there is a bipartisan coalition that would pass right now, a pathway to citizenship if Speaker Boehner lets it come to the floor.
It's different when you talk about immigration in the abstract... It's very different when you sit in front of a family, and [undocumented] children who grew up in this country, and who go to the same school you once went to... They thought if we only enforce the law, people will self-deport... It's not going to happen. The solution is not the status quo, or deportation when you're talking about breaking up families.
I am now more sure than ever that we're going to have a bipartisan bill ... making incredible progress.
A guest worker program should help farmers who are willing to pay a fair wage for law-abiding, dependable workers - not punish them ... And for this reason I support replacing the H-2A program and implementing new policies that will bring our illegal agricultural workers out of the shadows, as a first step in the process of overhauling our nation's immigration system.
The time for common-sense immigration reform is now," Grayson said in a news release. "We must set forth a straightforward route to citizenship for the undocumented immigrants who already live in our communities, work for our businesses and want to give back to the country that they call home.
I will argue until my last breath for a pathway to citizenship that is quick and efficient because I want to end this chapter. I want to end it...But let me say, conversely, I am as committed as any Republican to ending illegal immigration as we know it...They want to end it. So do I.
The politics, policies, the President [Barack Obama] and the American people are all pointing in the right direction to fix our immigration system and pass legislation this year.
As Dr. King said, an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. It is that creed of the civil rights movement that still motivates us today...So today, we take up the cause of joining arms with our immigrant brothers and sisters in that spirit... to lend a hand to those who confront injustice as a result of a broken immigration system.
Told reporters Wednesday he can support a pathway to citizenship for some of the 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. and that he actually prefers it to a plan that would create a second-class of citizens through alternative programs.
I support the framework that the bipartisan group of senators are working on...We have to remember the 11 million people who are here are people...[i]t's what Abraham Lincoln would have said, it is what the Republican Party stands for. It is the reason we have to get it right on who stays and who goes.
We can't really have a serious debate about reform on immigration if we don't have operational control of the border. ... With the executive order out there, with the urgency of the threat, I think it's very likely that we'll get something passed, later this year.
The good news is that we really do think that ... on the immigration issue, that we will, before summer, have comprehensive immigration reform.
Yes, absolutely because we think there is a way to do this through earned legalization without rewarding people who have come in with undocumented status, illegally. We don't want to give them an advantage over those who came here legally and we think that there's a way to do this while still respecting the rule of law. It's clear that what the President is talking about does not do that.
Partial legalization, as some are suggesting, is a dangerous path, and we need only look at France and Germany to see how unwise it is to create a permanent underclass.
When you take comprehensive, then we're dealing with certain issues like full citizenship ... And whatever else we disagree on, I think we would agree on that that's a more toxic and contentious issue, granting full amnesty.
It's amnesty that America can't afford. We have to stop people from coming in illegally. This will be a green light for anyone who wants to come to America illegally and then be granted citizenship one day... The majority that are here illegally are low-skilled or may not even have a high school diploma. The Republican Party is not going to compete over who can give more social programs out. They will become Democrats because of the social programs they'll depend on.
All I can tell you is what I see at home- a lot of lessons learned from '86. That, 'OK, we'll go one-time amnesty and after that we'll really be good.' But nobody believes it this time, nobody believes it.
People have a pathway to citizenship right now: It's to abide by the immigration laws, and if they have a family relationship, if they have a job skill that allows them to do that, they can obtain citizenship.
So I think there's going to be a constituent backlash against this thing soon, as they see it moving in that direction...Whether they can pass something before the American public wakes up, I don't know.
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