Best 603 quotes in «immigration quotes» category

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.

What we see today is an American economy that has boomed because of policies and developments of the 1950s and '60s: the interstate-highway system, massive funding for science and technology, a public-education system that was the envy of the world and generous immigration policies.

When dealing with illegal immigration, the answer is simple; enforce Constitutional mandates, and you will protect Floridians and the American people.

When I started Cove, I spoke to three immigration lawyers who gave me a long checklist of things to do before my company could hire immigrants.

When it comes to immigration, I think Americans expect that our immigration process is orderly and it is legal.

When politicians talk about immigration reform, they usually mean the following, amnesty, open borders, lower wages.

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

When politicians talk about immigration reform, they usually mean the following, amnesty, open borders, lower wages. Immigration reform should mean something else entirely. It should mean improvements to our laws and policies to make life better for American citizens.

When we have had in the past programs that have said that the people who come here illegally are going to get to stay illegally for the rest of their life, that's going to only encourage more people to come here illegally.

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.

Where I come from, taxpayers get justifiably upset that illegals can keep getting aid when we are cutting programs that help full-fledged U.S. citizens.

You used to be able to tell a person's nationality by the face. Immigration ended that. Next you discerned nationality via the footwear. Globalization ended that.

While Hillary Clinton meets only with donors and lobbyists, my plan was crafted with the input from Federal Immigration offices, very great people.

While we're members of the European Union, we don't have an immigration policy. We can't have an immigration policy. It's a charade for people to pretend we do.

Workers who come to the U.S. see their wages and their standard of living boosted sharply simply by crossing the border. That's a good thing, and one of the best arguments for immigration reform, even if you'll rarely hear a politician make it.

Yellow shirts have brightened immigration demonstrations across the country

you cannot maintain popular support for immigration policy, multiculturalism, unless you can control your borders.

You cannot simultaneously have free immigration and a welfare state.

You know what the left has succeeded in doing, they have succeeded, in terms of the vernacular, the lexicon, they've redefined the word "immigration" and to tell everyone we're anti-immigrant.

...you're never going to have a legal immigration system that works if you grant amnesty.

After using a paint chart from a local DIY superstore to identify the skin tone of his penis as midnight chocolate, Miriam stayed down on one knee and offered him the citizenship he had always wanted and the middle-aged white woman he would grudgingly accept.

Also – for there had been more than a few migrants aboard, yes, quite a quantity of wives who had been grilled by reasonable, doing-their-job officials about the length of and distinguishing moles upon their husbands’ genitalia, a sufficiency of children upon whose legitimacy the British Government had cast its ever-reasonable doubts – mingling with the remnants of the plane, equally fragmented, equally absurd, there floated the debris of the soul, broken memories, sloughed-off selves, severed mother-tongues, violated privacies, untranslatable jokes, extinguished futures, lost loves, the forgotten meaning of hollow, booming words, land, belonging, home.

All white nations now have sub-replacement fertility and almost all are receiving large numbers of non-white immigrants. Many say this should not be a cause for concern. Charles A. Price, Australia’s senior demographer, described in 2000 the change his country was going through: “Some people think that a steady replacement of Anglo-Celts by other ethnic groups is highly desirable. . . . Personally, [replacement] does not worry me . . . .” Jozef Ritzen, Dutch Minister of Education, Culture, and Science, explained that “this is the trend worldwide. The white race will in the long term become extinct. . . . Apparently we are happy with this development.” Tim Wise is a white person who has lectured on the evils of racism on more than 600 college campuses, and the Utne Reader named him one of “25 visionaries who are changing your world.” In an open letter to white American conservatives, he looked forward to the day when whites will be outnumbered by other races: 'We just have to be patient. And wait for your hearts to stop beating. And stop they will. And for some of you, real damned soon truth be told. Do you hear it? The sound of your empire dying? Your nation, as you knew it, ending, permanently? Because I do, and the sound of your demise is beautiful.

Along with all those who left their countries for other shores, I belong in neither land. We are unmoored and disconnected, like these poplar seeds blown into the crevices of the buildings, into the corners of the world.

America is so rich and fat, because it has eaten the tragedy of millions of immigrants.

A man who build walls, is a man who fears building bridges.

America has its purpose: it must serve that purpose to the end: I look upon the future as certain: our people will in the end read all these lessons right: America will stand opposed to everything which means restriction--stand against all policies of exclusion: accept Irish, Chinese--knowing it must not question the logic of its hospitality.

America is a nation of immigrants who forgot where they came from and poor people who think they'll soon be rich.

America is big enough to accommodate all their dreams.

[America]'s higher education system is excellent, both in terms of quality and accessibility. Here anybody can go to college. Many countries simply can't accommodate many students. And by the way, most people who came here in the seventies came to get an education. They didn't wake up one morning and say, 'I'm going to America to be free.' they said, 'I'll go there to get an education.' That's an important distinction. It was only after they were here for a while that they fully appreciated the freedoms we enjoy here.

Any immigrants found guilty of serious crime – rape, murder, violent gang membership – should be sent straight back to their country of origin. That ought to act as a deterrent. If they choose to bite the hand that feeds them, then they can fuck off. We don’t need people like that in this country.

A nation ringed by walls will only imprison itself.

An exchange student from Afghanistan "finds himself in the midst of America's circus of self-invention" as he experiences Halloween for the first time. His hosts bauble, "It's the greatest of holidays when you can become anything you want.

Another reason for our passivity is the fact that Hispanics are now 16 percent of the population, and their numbers are growing. Politicians from both parties say they cannot afford to alienate Hispanics because of their increasing power at the ballot box. But what do Hispanics want? Amnesty for illegal immigrants and yet more Hispanic immigration. It is folly for white politicians to think they will win the loyalty of Hispanic voters by endorsing policies that increase Hispanic power. As Hispanics gain in numbers and influence, they will replace non-Hispanic politicians with Hispanics. Foolish whites will be shoved out just as blacks shoved out Chris Bell, the white Democratic congressman from Texas [...] who was left sputtering that blacks forgot all about his career of “fighting for diversity” once they had a chance to vote for a black. It is already nearly impossible to discuss immigration rationally, or even enforce laws that are on the books. If we are afraid to take measures that might upset 16 percent of the population, what are our chances of defending larger interests if Hispanics are 20, 30, or even 40 percent of the country? We already have tens of millions of citizens whose primary loyalty is not to the United States but to Mexico. If there were a crisis with Mexico is there any doubt which side they would take? The United States already finds it difficult to advance its own interests against Mexican opposition. As the Mexican-American population grows, it could become impossible.

A nation which expects its biological survival from immigrants won’t survive.

And I thought, y’know, I mean…this is crazy. I mean, the only thing that determines what country you belong to is where you happened to be born? What is a country, anyway? It’s not, y’know, “purple mountain’s majesty” or “fruited plains,” whatever the hell that means. I mean, America isn’t a place, it’s an ideal. It could happen in the Sahara Desert and still be America. For that matter, I’m the child of immigrants. My father’s lived and worked in this country for the past three decades. And he’s somehow more or less American than some redneck who uses Osama bin Laden for toilet paper? How the hell do you measure something like that?

Asians are still a small minority—14.5 million (including about one million identified as part Asian) or 4.7 percent of the population—but their impact is vastly disproportionate to their numbers. Forty-four percent of Asian-American adults have a college degree or higher, as opposed to 24 percent of the general population. Asian men have median earnings 10 percent higher than non Asian men, and that of Asian women is 15 percent higher than non-Asian women. Forty-five percent of Asians are employed in professional or management jobs as opposed to 34 percent for the country as a whole, and the figure is no less than 60 percent for Asian Indians. The Information Technology Association of America estimates that in the high-tech workforce Asians are represented at three times their proportion of the population. Asians are more likely than the American average to own homes rather than be renters. These successes are especially remarkable because no fewer than 69 percent of Asians are foreign-born, and immigrant groups have traditionally taken several generations to reach their full economic potential. Asians are vastly overrepresented at the best American universities. Although less than 5 percent of the population they account for the following percentages of the students at these universities: Harvard: 17 percent, Yale: 13 percent, Princeton: 12 percent, Columbia: 14 percent, Stanford: 25 percent. In California, the state with the largest number of Asians, they made up 14 percent of the 2005 high school graduating class but 42 percent of the freshmen on the campuses of the University of California system. At Berkeley, the most selective of all the campuses, the 2005 freshman class was an astonishing 48 percent Asian. Asians are also the least likely of any racial or ethnic group to commit crimes. In every category, whether violent crime, white-collar crime, alcohol, or sex offenses, they are arrested at about one-quarter to one-third the rate of whites, who are the next most law-abiding group. It would be a mistake, however, to paint all Asians with the same brush, as different nationalities can have distinctive profiles. For example, 40 percent of the manicurists in the United States are of Vietnamese origin and half the motel rooms in the country are owned by Asian Indians. Chinese (24 percent of all Asians) and Indians (16 percent), are extremely successful, as are Japanese and Koreans. Filipinos (18 percent) are somewhat less so, while the Hmong face considerable difficulties. Hmong earn 30 percent less than the national average, and 60 percent drop out of high school. In the Seattle public schools, 80 percent of Japanese-American students passed Washington state’s standardized math test for 10th-graders—the highest pass rate for any ethnic group. The group with the lowest pass rate—14 percent—was another “Asian/Pacific Islanders” category: Samoans. On the whole, Asians have a well-deserved reputation for high achievement.

As I would learn later on, developed countries will always welcome the Einsteins of this world -- those individuals whose talents are already recognized and deemed to have value. This welcome doesn't usually extend to the poor and uneducated people seeking to enter the country. But the truth, supported by the facts of history and the richness of immigrant contribution to America's distinction in the world, is that the most entrepreneurial, innovative, motivated citizen is the one who has been given an opportunity and wants to repay the debt.

As many Chinas as there were, there were that many Charleses as well. Every immigrant is the person he might have been and the person he is, and his homeland is at once the place it would have been to him from the inside and the place it must be to him from the outside.

As long as we build walls around our cities, we make desperate people who want to come in more resolute to bring them down.

As private prison companies have long recognized, the most profitable sector of the prison-industrial complex is immigration detention and deportation.

As she continues to answer questions about her employment, all these words mean little more to her now than I AM SOPHISTICATED, I AM WORTHY, I AM SOPHISTICATED, I AM WORTHY. She attempts the posture of a politician's wife, shoulders held back, dignifIed yet modest.

But because divorce was so unheard of in middle-class Indian society, people looked at divorcées with a sort of incredulous shock and wonder, as if they were somehow criminals. They were ostracized from everyday life because of an invisible scarlet D hovering over them. Meanwhile, Second Wave feminism in the United States was changing attitudes about how women were treated in the workplace and in society, and how unmarried women were perceived in particular. Women were challenging age-old notions of their place in the world. Western media was full of unafraid, smart American women who published magazines, were marching in DC, and were generally making a lot of noise. No such phenomenon had reached our Indian shores. I’m sure my mother had read about the ERA movement, Roe v. Wade, and bra burnings. She, too, wanted the freedom to earn a living in a country where she wouldn’t be a pariah because of her marital status. We could have a fighting chance at surviving independently in the United States, versus being dependent on her father or a future husband in India. Conservative as he was, my grandfather K. C. Krishnamurti, or “Tha-Tha,” as I called him in Tamil, had encouraged her to leave my father after he witnessed how she had been treated. He respected women and loved his daughter and it must have broken his heart to see the situation she had married into. He, too, wanted us to have a second chance at happiness. America, devoid of an obvious caste system and outright misogyny, seemed to value hard work and the use of one’s mind; even a woman could succeed there. My grandfather was a closet feminist.

At its worst, crime turns parts of our country into what one journalist calls “budding Mogadishus,” named after the capital of Somalia where, for years, there has been no government: 'L.A.’s hot zones are tiny, intensely dangerous areas where nothing works, where law has broken down and mainstream institutions simply fail. Places where mail carriers and meter readers balk when the bullets fly. Where paramedics and firefighters are hesitant to enter because of the crossfire. Where police officers go in only heavily reinforced or with helicopters . . . .' Race is part of it. According to one calculation of homicide victimization rates for men, ages 15 to 29, Hispanics in Los Angeles are killed at seven times the white rate and blacks at 21 times the white rate. Hardly any are killed by whites. Calling these places “Mogadishus” may be an insult to the Somalis. When CNN compiled a list of the ten most dangerous cities in the world in 2010, Mogadishu was not on it. Detroit and New Orleans were—in third and fourth places, after Baghdad and Caracas and ahead of Kinshasa and Beirut.

Blacks in upscale Shaker Heights are convinced they are victims. They are professionals who moved to the Cleveland suburb because of its good schools, but found that black children had an average grade point average of 1.9 compared to a white average of 3.45. John Ogbu, a Nigerian immigrant who is an expert at UC Berkeley on race differences in school performance, moved to Shaker Heights for nine months and researched the schools. He concluded that most of the problem was that black students were not interested in studying—they considered it “acting white”—and that their parents did not push them. Blacks were outraged. One parent called him “an academic Clarence Thomas,” and the National Urban League said his conclusions were an effort to “blame the victims of racism.” One reporter could not find a single black person in Shaker Heights who had anything good to say about Prof. Ogbu’s conclusions. For blacks, there was only one explanation for black failure: white racism.

But he was no longer in Tollygunge. He had stepped out of it as he had stepped so many mornings out of his dreams, its reality and its particular logic rendered meaningless in the light of day. The difference was so extreme that he could not accommodate the two places together in his mind. In this enormous new country, there seemed to be nowhere for the old to reside. There was nothing to link them; he was the sole link. Here life ceased to obstruct or assault him. Here was a place where humanity was not always pushing, rushing, running as if with a fire at its back

As we all came to discover the limitations of assimilation, we grew closer as a family

A third layer of nativeness was composed of those whom others thought directly descended, even the tiniest fraction of their genes, from the human beings who had been brought from Africa centuries ago as slaves. While this layer of nativeness was not vast in proportion of the rest, it had vast importance, for society had been shaped in reaction to it. An unspeakable violence had occurred in relation to it, and yet it endured, fertile, a stratum of soil that perhaps made possible all future transplanted soils.

Bei der Flüchtlingsfrage müssen wir deshalb mehr tun, weil 50% Prozent aller Flüchtlinge, die kommen...gehen in 3 Länder, das sind Deutschland, Frankreich und Schweden. 25 Mitgliedsstaaten der europäischen Union sind nicht bereit sich daran zu beteiligen. Das ist ein Skandal! Und deshalb darf man auch mal berechtitgerweise sagen: Solidarität heißt an diesem Problem müssen sich ALLE Länder der europäischen Union beteiligen.

Being constantly looked at like an alien in the country you were born in requires true tolerance.