John Sweeney Quotes

The fact is this is a great country because we've always embraced immigrants. The fact is we have every right to enforce our borders and to protect them, but we also need to provide a pathway for citizenship.

We're being overrun by people who live in poor and corrupt countries who come to the USA to get work. But we got to regain our sovereignty, we're going to control our border, and there will be border security tied to the pathway to citizenship. There will be an earned pathway to citizenship. It will be available to everybody who works hard, pays a fine, passes a background check.

I think the American people have a generous instinct. They understand that we're a nation of immigrants. But if those folks are going to live in this country, they have to be put on a pathway to citizenship that involves them paying a fine, making sure that they are at the back of the line and not cutting in front of people who applied legally to come into the country.

The implication here is that those who came to America legally over the years are somehow second-class citizens.

And we'll build a path to citizenship for millions of immigrants who are already contributing to our economy!

Bernie Sanders supports offering a pathway to citizenship for immigrants already in the U.S. and halting deportations for almost 9 million hardworking undocumented fathers and mothers.

As an immigrant justice advocate, I, of course, want legal status for everyone trying to make it in this country.

The most urgent task I have is to help those British citizens who came from the Caribbean, the so-called Windrush generation, and make sure they are all treated with the decency and the fairness they deserve.

We have 11 million people in this country that need a pathway to citizenship.

I will fight every single day to pass comprehensive immigration-reform legislation with a path to citizenship.

Part of comprehensive immigration reform is not just the path to citizenship for undocumented workers, but also the ability for families to be together.

Giving people like me a green card, a passport, and a driver's license? That's not going to be the end of the immigration conversation and debate in this country. It's like saying we elected Barack Obama president, so all of the racial problems are done. Right? I mean in some ways, the immigration conversation is just starting. Which is why when we started this campaign, we didn't call it Define Immigrant, we called it Define American. That's the question. That's what's at stake.

No path to citizenship. People that want to gain legal status, you heard Donald Trump say again and again, will have to leave the country.

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.

So, what exactly is the News-Press' unforgivable crime? Calling illegal aliens 'illegals' in a headline for a story about illegal aliens descending on California DMVs. A new law went into effect last Friday allowing illegal aliens to obtain driver's licenses without proof of lawful residence. The article featured interviews with ecstatic illegal aliens, including one who has been in the country illegally for '22 years.'

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.

We can't wait any longer for a path to full and equal citizenship. Now, this is where I differ with everybody on the Republican side. Make no mistake, today, not a single Republican candidate, announced or potential, is clearly and consistently supporting a path to citizenship. Not one. When they talk about legal status that is code for second-class status.

It's all about who gets to work and making sure they're legally present in our country. And to do that nationally E-verify becomes a key component. It certainly needs to available, effective and as inexpensive as possible and that employer needs to use it as a tool. Some of the arguments that are made about how it works or does not work don't carry much water with me. I've already used it for several years. It works.

Hillary Clinton is only talking about families who come here in violation of the law. We will treat everyone living or residing in our country with great dignity. So important.

Like other undocumented people in this country, I want a green card, and I want a driver's license, and I want a passport. What, to me, is the immigration bill? It's a green card, a driver's license, and a passport. That's what it's about to me, tangibly. That I could see my mom. That I could drive. Is there anything more American than driving? That I could get a green card and be able to - right now, I'm just like freelancing and working as an independent contractor. It's hilarious. I'm unhirable.

We must not lose sight of the fundamental issue of policy which is that people who come to the country on visa status must never be abused.

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.

No. 1, it [amnesty for illegal aliens] demoralizes the people that are going through the legal process. It's a very clear signal that why go through the legal process if you can accomplish the same thing through the illegal process? And No. 2, it demoralizes the people enforcing the law. So I am not and I will never support - never have and never will support - any effort to grant blanket legalization amnesty to folks who have entered or stayed in this country illegally.

Let me tell you who the immigration system in America does not serve. It does not serve you the American people.

This is a guy [Donald Trump] who has been very consistent on no amnesty, no legalization, for folks who have been coming to the country illegally.