As Congress continues to debate ways to address illegal immigration, we must remember the many hard-working legal immigrants that contribute so much to our nation's economy and culture. — Bob Filner
Mr. Speaker, our Nation depends on immigrants' labor, and I hope we can create an immigration system as dependable as they are. — Luis Gutierrez
I think when you think about immigration, what we need to do is realize that that human capital, if put in a place to succeed, will literally sacrifice everything. — Chamath Palihapitiya
Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian. — Robert Orben
We should embrace our immigrant roots and recognize that newcomers to our land are not part of the problem, they are part of the solution. — Roger Mahony
Immigration is the sincerest form of flattery. — Jack Paar
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. — Harry Browne
The U.S. had a continental empire to build and it needed immigrants to do so. — Tim Marshall
What is at risk are the lives of hard-working Salvadoran families. In fact, unchecked violence was one of the main drivers of immigration from this country to the United States. — Nayib Bukele
Everywhere immigrants have enriched and strengthened the fabric of American life. — John F. Kennedy
Immigration is not just compatible with but is a necessary component of economic growth. — Dave Reichert
Our immigration system is a broken system that needs to be fixed. We need reform that provides hardworking people of good character with a real path towards citizenship. — Joe Baca
The Republican Party looks at massive immigration, legal and illegal, as a source of cheap labor, satisfying a very important constituency. — Tom Tancredo
Our nation of immigrants is, tautologically, a nation of emigrants. — Balaji Srinivasan
All of our people all over the country-except the pure-blooded Indians-are immigrants or descendants of immigrants, including even those who came over here on the Mayflower. — Franklin D. Roosevelt
Migrant Workers Quotes
The same skills that I used as a welder, as a migrant farm worker, are similar skills that I'm using as a brain surgeon. — Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa
When I see the migrant workers broken bodies and eyes without hope, I want to embrace and wipe away their fears. It makes me angry and helps me to keep fighting the oppressive system. — Irene Fernandez
We must have an economy that does not force the migrant worker's child to miss school in order to earn...just so the family can eat. That is the moral bankruptcy that trickle-down economics is all about. — Barbara Jordan
The way of the miracle-worker is to see all human behavior as one of two things: either love, or a call for love.
We should be the pro-legal immigration party. A party that has a positive platform and agenda on how we can create a legal immigration system that works for immigrants and works for America. — Marco Rubio
Both my parents were migrant workers who came to the U.K. in the Fifties to better themselves. The culture I grew up in was to work hard, save hard and to look after your family. — Sanjeev Bhaskar
I like talking about people who don't have any power and it seems like some of the least powerful people in the United States are the migrant workers who come and do our work and don't have any rights as a result. And yet we still invite them to come here, and at the same time ask them to leave. — Stephen Colbert
Happiness is having a co-worker who becomes a friend.
A pioneer in this genre [ writing about the refugee crisis] : the book A Seventh Man, by the great John Berger, decades ago evoked the lives of migrant workers in Europe. — Adam Hochschild
No movement calls [migrant workers] oppressed for providing money for women from whom they are receiving neither cooking nor cleaning; for providing their wives with homes while they sleep on the ground. — Warren Farrell
Monsanto doesn't care about feeding the world. We have to think about the wage slavery of migrant workers and salary slavery of those who are desperately unhappy. — Wendell Berry
As long as they are working, they should be legalized. I admire so much each and every migrant. They are the most loyal workers in the U.S. economy. They build the homes of those who are attacking them. — Vicente Fox
Undocumented Workers Quotes
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
Part of comprehensive immigration reform is not just the path to citizenship for undocumented workers, but also the ability for families to be together. — Pramila Jayapal
And let us not forget the Social Security system. Recent studies show that undocumented workers sustain the Social Security system with a subsidy as much as $7 billion a year. Let me repeat that: $7 billion a year. — Luis Gutierrez
The way of the miracle-worker is to see all human behavior as one of two things: either love, or a call for love.
If you want to stop illegal immigration, you have to make it so that - so that the people that hire the illegal immigrants will not be in a position to hire them. — Jesse Ventura
I'm concerned about a lot of serious border issues. This book is about the border reality and the struggles of the undocumented worker. — Ana Castillo
I want to help correct the inaccurate image of immigration in the media. There is an idea that women's issues are over here and immigration is over there. Three quarters of undocumented workers are women and children. — Gloria Steinem
Governments don't want a population capable of critical thinkng. They want obedient workers, people just smart enough to run the machines and just dumb enough to passively accept their situation.
I want to get everybody out of the shadows, get the economy working, and not let employers like Donald Trump exploit undocumented workers, which hurts them, but also hurts American workers. — Hillary Clinton
Donald Trump used undocumented labor to build the Trump Tower. He underpaid undocumented workers, and when they complained, he basically said what a lot of employers do: "You complain, I'll get you deported." — Hillary Clinton
Over a period of time, they [undocumented workers] can have a legalized status that allows them to live a life of dignity but not necessarily a path to citizenship, so as to not create incentives for future people that aspire to come to our country to do so illegally when they could come legally. — Jeb Bush
Part of the problem of being labeled a model minority is that everyone thinks you've made it, but that's far from the case. You can see that in the horrific stories where undocumented workers are trying to get into the country. That's the backlash. — Arthur Dong
Immigrant Quotes
Now, some of the most dangerous places for women to be in the world are modern, Western, rich European countries. Why? One reason. Islamic immigration - it's got to stop. — Milo Yiannopoulos
Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists. — Franklin D. Roosevelt
Hillary Clinton has shown no indication whatsoever of stemming the tide of Islamic immigration, or stopping our mollycoddling, and pandering to Islam. These things are direct threats. Not just to culture, but to the lives of gay people in America. — Milo Yiannopoulos
Western culture is what is at risk from immigration from the Middle East. — Milo Yiannopoulos
A nation that cannot control its borders is not a nation. — Ronald Reagan
When I ran I was a first candidate to talk about how immigration was going be so damaging to the American people. When I first ran I talked about affirmative-action. — David Duke
We must be mad, literally mad, as a nation to be permitting the annual inflow of some 50,000 dependents, who are for the most part the material of the future growth of the immigrant-descended population. It is like watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre. — Enoch Powell
The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations And Religions; whom we shall wellcome to a participation of all our rights and previleges... — George Washington
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. — Theodore Roosevelt
I had always hoped that this land might become a safe and agreeable asylum to the virtuous and persecuted part of mankind, to whatever nation they might belong. — George Washington
Undocumented Immigrants Quotes
Most analysts would agree that if all the undocumented immigrants in California were deported in one day, our state would experience a severe economic downturn. This does not even consider the many cultural and spiritual gifts these immigrants bring to our state and nation. — Roger Mahony
In a groundbreaking move, the Associated Press, the largest news-gathering organization in the World, will no longer use the term 'illegal immigrant'. They will now use the phrase 'undocumented democrat'. — Jay Leno
In 2007, when I was governor of New York, I proposed that our state once again permit undocumented immigrants to obtain a driver's license. To say the proposal lit a firestorm in the political arena is an understatement. — Eliot Spitzer
[Donald] Trump has been saying that on, day one, the violent undocumented immigrants will be - will leave the country. But what about the rest? What happens to the other 11 or so million, however many there are? — Jake Tapper
Until he announced his immigration policy last week, Obama had the support of most Hispanic voters - but not the enthusiasm they had shown for him in 2008. That may be changing in part because of the decision not to deport young immigrants whose undocumented parents brought them here as children. — Mara Liasson
You wouldn't replace your carpet at home if you still had a hole in the roof...We're talking about any time you start waving a carrot such as American citizenship without securing the borders, that number [of undocumented immigrants] that we have today I believe will double or triple. — Lou Barletta
Nearly 11 million undocumented immigrants currently live within our borders. That's 11 million people living in the shadows whom we know next to nothing about. — Steve Israel
We have undocumented immigrants in America who are paying more federal income tax than a billionaire. I find that just astonishing. — Hillary Clinton
Bringing undocumented immigrants out from the shadows, putting them into the formal economy will be good, because then employers can't exploit them and undercut Americans' wages. — Hillary Clinton
Under my plan the undocumented or as you would say illegal immigrant wouldn’t be in the country. They only come in the country legally. — Donald Trump
Opening our borders to a flood of illegal immigrants is deliberate ... It's time to impeach; and on behalf of American workers and legal immigrants of all backgrounds, we should vehemently oppose any politician on the left or right who would hesitate in voting for articles of impeachment. — Sarah
Where you see immigration competition play out most clearly is among high school dropouts. I'd say there's clearly immigrant competition among the least-skilled workers, but natives are a shrinking share while immigrants are a growing share. — Jared Bernstein
We ought to increase legal immigration for our country's advantage. The high-tech world we are now dominating is dependent on educated folks, but we're short...of workers. It is to our nation's advantage to encourage high-powered, smart people to come into our country. — George H. W. Bush
Immigrant families have integrated themselves into our communities, establishing deep roots. Whenever they have settled, they have made lasting contributions to the economic vitality and diversity of our communities and our nation. Our economy depends on these hard-working, taxpaying workers. They have assisted America in its economic boom. — Edward Kennedy
A recent Pew Hispanic survey found that more than 70 percent of illegal immigrants from Mexico are interested in a guest-worker program and then returning home. — John Shadegg
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
Hard-working immigrant workers in this country deserve a real path to citizenship as a part of comprehensive immigration reform...We will continue to work with the immigrant rights community and our allies in Congress to devise a truly comprehensive model that places immigrant and workers' rights at the head of the line. — John Sweeney
[We need] to choose immigrants based on merit. Merit, skill, and proficiency. Doesn't that sound nice? And to establish new immigration controls to boost wages and to ensure that open jobs are offered to American workers first. — Donald Trump
Illegal immigrants are beginning to comprise a black market class of workers in our society, jeopardizing the financial health of companies which play by the rules, while themselves vulnerable to the exploitation by those willing to take advantage of their illegal status. — Spencer Bachus
This [Gang of Eight bill (S.744)] is far, far too many low-skilled workers that are going to take jobs and pull down wages of people unemployed and underemployed right now. — Jeff Sessions
Nearly every study shows that competition from cheap foreign labor undercuts the wages of American workers and legal immigrants. — Lamar S. Smith
We talked a lot about Donald's [Trump] record on immigration. There is irony that he has made the center of his entire campaign immigration, given that he faced a $1 million court judgment for being part of a conspiracy to hire illegal aliens, given that news broke that he is hiring foreign workers at his fancy hotel in Florida. — Ted Cruz
If you got up this morning and had fruits for breakfast, it was probably picked by the bent back of an immigrant worker. If you slept in a hotel or motel of the nation, you probably had your room done by an immigrant worker. — Bob Menendez
The immigration system is broken and it needs to be fixed. And it needs to be fixed comprehensively, because this country depends on immigrant workers, but we don't have a system that reflects that. Our system is absolutely antiquated. — Pramila Jayapal
Federal laws, including those that made so many people immigrate without documents, gutted the enforcement power of the Department of Labor and created a lower minimum wage for tipped workers than for everybody else, reinforcing the industry’s — Rinku Sen
Apparently, union bosses are so distraught about declining enrollments they will stoop to exploiting illegal workers. There is no doubt that this would hurt American workers, who would suddenly face a flooded job market full of cheap foreign labor. It would depress the wages of the American workers and cost them jobs. — Lamar S. Smith
Significantly opening up immigration to skilled workers solves two problems. The companies could hire the educated workers they need. And those workers would compete with high-income people, driving more income equality. — Alan Greenspan
On top of that she promises uncontrolled, low-skilled immigration that continues to reduce jobs and wages for American workers, and especially for African-American and Hispanic workers within our country. Our citizens. — Donald Trump
These four policy prescriptions - strengthening educational opportunities, revamping immigration rules for highly skilled workers, increasing federal funding for basic scientific research, and providing incentives for private-sector R&D - should in my view be top priorities as Congress and the Administration consider how to maintain the nation's leadership in science, technology, and innovation. — Sayings
Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs, will be made to benefit American workers and American families. We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making our products, stealing our companies, and destroying our jobs. Protection will lead to great prosperity and strength. — Donald Trump
Decades of record immigration have produced lower wages and higher unemployment for our citizens, especially for African-American and Latino workers. We are going to have an immigration system that works, but one that works for the American people. — Donald Trump
I want manufacturing to be back into the United States so that American workers can benefit. — Donald Trump
L.A. has a lot of tackiness to it, but at the same time, in that funny kind of fantasy pretentiousness, it's unpretentious because it's all here. It's what you make of it. It's a land of opportunity in a lot of ways. It's a great for an immigrant because it is what you make of it, and especially artists as workers in this culture, it offers so much, in terms of variety, of diversity. For years, the alleys of Los Angeles were my art store. — Michael C. McMillen
My dad is a minister and my mum is a worker with the less fortunate and the disabled. They're Nigerian natives. Their first language is Yoruba, and their second language is English. My mum and dad moved to London when they had my eldest sister. They started a life in London as immigrants, and they built up from there. They're no actors in my family, but there are definitely animated black people in my family. — John Boyega
We will reform legal immigration to serve the best interests of America and its workers, the forgotten people - workers. We`re going to take care of our workers. We`re going to renegotiate trade deals. We`re going to bring our jobs back home. — Donald Trump
While there are many illegal immigrants in America who are good people, many, many, this doesn't change the fact that most illegal immigrants are lower skilled workers with less education, who compete directly against vulnerable American workers, and that these illegal workers draw much more out from the system than they can ever possibly pay back. — Donald Trump
My every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs will be made to benefit American workers and American families. — Donald Trump
[My father] came over as an immigrant and didn't know any English. He went to work at a sweat shop in Baltimore. He told me later that this guy was coming around, and the guy seemed to be for the workers, so he signed up. It turned out that guy was an IWW organizer . My father didn't regret signing up; he just really didn't know what was going on. — Noam Chomsky
I had relatives in New York City who I stayed with. And in those days, the area from Union Square down Fourth Avenue had small bookstores, many of which were run by Spanish immigrants who'd fled after [Francisco] Franco's victory. I spent time in them, and also in the offices of Freie Arbeiter Stimme (Free Worker's Voice) with anarchists. I picked up a lot of material and talked to people, and it became a major influence. — Noam Chomsky
We will reform legal immigration to serve the best interests of America and its workers, the forgotten people. Workers. We're going to take care of our workers. — Donald Trump
I've written about illegal immigrants in the United States; I spent a year following migrant farm workers as they were harvesting. I've written about our criminal justice system, and how it treats the victims of crime. I've been working for years now on a book about prisons in America, and I've been going into prisons and traveling around the country and seeing what's going on. — Eric Schlosser
As I wrote Working toward Whiteness, I came to see one historic task on the New Deal - and one in which it succeeded - as the fostering of fuller U.S. citizenship among immigrants from southern and eastern Europe and their kids. But this very achievement separated poorer and often despised immigrant workers from Europe and workers of color in unprecedented ways. — David Roediger
An essential criterion for any humane immigration policy is that it should allow families to remain together. Whether that means letting the entire family migrate together, or allowing a caregiver to travel back and forth across the border, it should make it easier for workers to be with their families instead of harder. — Jody Heymann
You are never going to have, in a country as rich as ours [the USA], that borders a country as poor as Mexico, an end to immigration. You just won't. The question is, if you make it humane and if you make it regulated. It's much better for an American worker to compete against a regulated immigrant inside labor standards, than it is to ever to compete against an illegal immigrant. — Ezra Klein
Immigration reform is important in our country. We have a lot of employers over on the beaches that rely upon workers and especially in this high-growth environment, where are you going to get people to work to clean our hotel rooms or do our landscaping? We don't need to put those employers in a position of hiring undocumented and illegal workers. — Alex Sink
But I also want to give them a pathway so that they can earn citizenship, earn a legal status, start learning English, pay a significant fine, go to the back of the line, but they can then stay here and they can have the ability to enforce a minimum wage that they're paid, make sure the worker safety laws are available, make sure that they can join a union. — Barack Obama
Estiven Rodriguez couldn't speak a word of English when he moved to New York City at age nine. But last month, thanks to the support of great teachers and an innovative tutoring program, he led a march of his classmates - through a crowd of cheering parents and neighbors - from their high school to the post office, where they mailed off their college applications. And this son of a factory worker just found out he's going to college this fall. — Barack Obama
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. — Bob Goodlatte
Reforms to our complex and dysfunctional immigration system should not in any way favor those who came here illegally over the millions of applicants who seek to come here lawfully. Additionally, the framework carves out a special exception for agricultural workers that has little justification. — Mike Lee
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