Immigration Quotes - Page 31

• It is said that the quality of recent immigration is undesirable. The time is quite within recent memory when the same thing was said of immigrants who, with their descendants, are now numbered among our best citizens.

  Grover Cleveland

  Memories, Quality, Citizens

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• In the final analysis it doesn't really matter what the political system is...We don't need perfect political systems; we need perfect participation.

  Cesar Chavez

  Perfect, Political, Finals

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• Our two-party system is a fraud, a sham, a delusion. On foreign policy, trade, immigration, Big Government, we have one-party government, one party press; and conservatives are being played for suckers.

  Pat Buchanan

  Party, Government, Two

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• Everywhere I travel throughout Eastern Washington, I hear from people demanding we do a better job of controlling our borders and reducing illegal immigration.

  Cathy McMorris Rodgers

  Travel, Jobs, People

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• What we need to do is to have a sensible approach to immigration. It needs to be open. It needs to be non-dogmatic and non-bigoted. We need to be firm but reasonable in the way we deal with the problem of illegal immigration. And we need to try to get as many of our immigrants who want to do so to become citizens as quickly as possible so that the American people will all see that this is a part of the process of American history, which is a good one for our country.

  William J. Clinton

  Country, People, Trying

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• Together, undocumented people like me and our relatives, friends and allies wait for broader immigration reform, not just for Dreamers but also for undocumented workers of all ages and backgrounds who contribute to our economic security and prosperity.

  Jose Antonio Vargas

  People, Waiting, Dreamer

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• When you've seen prejudice, you understand that we aren't finished, that we're still perfecting this American experiment.

  Anthony Romero

  Prejudice, Experiments, Stills

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• It's difficult to oppress people who have a sense of identity and unity, he says. Our struggle is about being seen as human beings trying to earn our daily bread.

  Pablo Alvarado

  Struggle, People, Unity

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• If we would reach a degree of civilization higher and grander than any yet attained, we should welcome to our ample continent all the nations, kindreds, tongues and peoples, and as fast as they learn our language and comprehend the duties of citizenship, we should incorporate them into the American body politic. The outspread wings of the American eagle are broad enough to shelter all who are likely to come.

  Frederick Douglass

  Eagles, Civilization, Wings

  "Our Composite Nationality". Frederick Douglass' Address in Boston, Massachusetts, teachingamericanhistory.org. December 7, 1869.

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• I argued last year on my shared blog that selling the right to immigrate would be the best approach to legal immigration. Among other benefits, the revenue from immigrants' payments could reduce taxes. Paying for the right to immigrate would also negate the argument that immigrants get a free ride when they gain health care and other benefits. Moreover, making immigrants pay would attract the type of immigrants who came much earlier in American history: young men and women who are reasonably skilled and want to make a long-term commitment to the United States.

  Gary Becker

  Commitment, Years, Long

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• At least 99.92% of illegal immigrants and visa overstays without known crimes on their records did not face removal.

  Jeff Sessions

  Records, Faces, Crime

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• ...their callous indifference to the plight of children streaming across the border, fleeing horrific circumstances in their own country. Republicans are simply strangled by extremism. There is no more establishment, or middle or moderate wing. You've got the Steve King wing of the Republican Party today, who raised the specter of impeachment this weekend.

  Debbie Wasserman Schultz

  Country, Kings, Children

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• These people are out of control. It's stunning.

  Debbie Wasserman Schultz

  People, Stunning

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• I think the real, fundamental problem that the Republicans have is, 'How do we get meaner, how do we get nastier with immigrants, so that we can take a smaller group,' now apparently led by Senator Cruz - I mean, maybe he's gonna be the next Speaker of the House. Because it's quite clear that Mr. Boehner has no control over this conference.

  Luis Gutierrez

  Real, Mean, Thinking

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• So where are they moving today? They're going to move to be meaner to immigrants in order to bring their conference together.

  Luis Gutierrez

  Moving, Order, Together

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• How is this any different than the big boat argument of people when it came to African-Americans after the Civil War, decided, 'Put them on a boat and send them back where they came from?' You know, he says it in polite language, but that's what Romney's been saying, 'Get home where you came from, start all over again.'

  Chris Matthews

  War, Home, People

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• These are 8- and 12-year-old kids. It doesn't matter how they got here. It is time to show a little compassion

  Paul Soglin

  Kids, Compassion, Years

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• You had a flood of immigrants, millions of them, coming to this country. What brought them here? It was the hope for a better life for them and their children. And, in the main, they succeeded. It is hard to find any century in history, in which so large a number of people experience so great an improvement in the conditions of their life, in the opportunities open to them, as in the period of the 19th and early 20th century.

  Milton Friedman

  Country, Children, Opportunity

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• You will find that hardly a soul who will say that it was a bad thing. Almost everybody will say it was a good thing. 'But what about today? Do you think we should have free immigration?' 'Oh, no,' they'll say, 'We couldn't possibly have free immigration today. Why, that would flood us with immigrants from India, and God knows where. We'd be driven down to a bare subsistence level.'

  Milton Friedman

  Thinking, Should Have, Soul

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• What's the difference? How can people be so inconsistent? Why is it that free immigration was a good thing before 1914 and free immigration is a bad thing today? Well, there is a sense in which that answer is right. There's a sense in which free immigration, in the same sense as we had it before 1914 is not possible today. Why not?

  Milton Friedman

  Differences, People, Why Not

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• Because it is one thing to have free immigration to jobs. It is another thing to have free immigration to welfare. And you cannot have both. If you have a welfare state, if you have a state in which every resident is promises a certain minimal level of income, or a minimum level of subsistence, regardless of whether he works or not, produces it or not. Then it really is an impossible thing.

  Milton Friedman

  Jobs, Impossible Things, Promise

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• If you have free immigration, in the way we had it before 1914, everybody benefited. The people who were here benefited. The people who came benefited. Because nobody would come unless he, or his family, thought he would do better here than he would elsewhere. And, the new immigrants provided additional resources, provided additional possibilities for the people already here. So everybody can mutually benefit.

  Milton Friedman

  People, Benefits, Way

  "Illegal Immigration: A Feature, Not A Bug, Said Milton Friedman" by Brian Doherty, reason.com. May 11, 2011.

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• But on the other hand, if you come under circumstances where each person is entitled to a pro-rata share of the pot, to take an extreme example, or even to a low level of the pie, than the effect of that situation is that free immigration, would mean a reduction of everybody to the same, uniform level. Of course, I'm exaggerating, it wouldn't go quite that far, but it would go in that direction. And it is that perception, that leads people to adopt what at first seems like inconsistent values.

  Milton Friedman

  Mean, Hands, Pie

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• That's an interesting paradox to think about. Make it legal and it's no good. Why? Because as long as it's illegal the people who come in do not qualify for welfare, they don't qualify for social security, they don't qualify for the other myriad of benefits that we pour out from our left pocket to our right pocket. So long as they don't qualify they migrate to jobs. They take jobs that most residents of this country are unwilling to take. They provide employers with the kind of workers that they cannot get. They're hard workers, they're good workers, and they are clearly better off.

  Milton Friedman

  Country, Jobs, Hard Work

  "Illegal Immigration: A Feature, Not A Bug, Said Milton Friedman" by Brian Doherty, reason.com. May 11, 2011.

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• We're not going to deputize a whole bunch of American citizens to start grabbing people or turning them in, in part because the ordinary American citizen may not know whether or not this person is illegal or not. But, you know, the notion that we're going to criminalize priests, for example, or doctors who are providing services to individuals, and throw them in jail for doing what their calling asks them to do, which is to provide help and service to people in need, I think that is a mistake. I think that's out of America's character.

  Barack Obama

  Mistake, Character, Thinking

  "Transcript: NPR Democratic Candidates' Debate". www.npr.org. December 4, 2007.

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