Tony Abbott Quotes

Migration has been politicized before it has been analyzed.

We live in an era where masses of people come and go across a hostile planet, desolate and violent. Refugees, emigrants, exiles, deportees. We are a tragic contingent.

We in Austria have always had lots of immigration. But when one starts, as happened in Europe last year, to open the borders and to transport people northwards as fast as possible, then of course it's not just Syrians who come. People from all around the world then see their chance to quickly come to Europe.

Why are all these refugees rushing to the beauty and strength of Europe and to the United States and not rushing to their own capitals or the capitals of the Muslim world? We ought to be pushing back. We ought to be putting people back on these boats and putting them back into the places where they came from and telling these leaders in the Arab world, "You have a responsibility as well."

The claim made by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán that the refugee question is a German problem is incorrect. It is a European problem.

We have a human rights interest. Then there is the immigration problem. The human-rights violations have caused people to take to boats and flood not only the United States, but other countries in the region, creating great instability.

But last year there were 540,000 people, roughly, detained coming across the border illegally. Forty-five thousand of them came from countries other than Mexico, demonstrating the fact that Mexico itself now is a pathway into the United States for people all around the world, and we don't know what their intentions are.

If 30 Australians drowned in Sydney Harbour, it would be a national tragedy. But when 30 or more refugees drown off the Australian coast, it is a political question.

Immigration has always been a concept that inflames passions.

The unregulated migration of hundreds of thousands of refugees from terrorist safe havens in Syria, Iraq, and Libya has created a very difficult threat environment for Europe.

Migrants don't come to the United States because, as Ambassador Aponte argued in her press conference, of 'lies' told by smugglers that, once here, you can't get deported. They come because their countries have been destroyed by U.S. policy.

Enough of Sicily being the refugee camp of Europe. I will not stand by and do nothing while there are landings after landings of migrants.

In 2015, the majority of refugees and migrants reached the European Union through Greece. Greek authorities were overwhelmed by the sheer number of people arriving at their shores. But they did not stay there. They were waved through to Central Europe at an increasing pace.

In 2019 folks were coming across the border and were sitting down, they were sitting down waiting for Border Patrol to come up because they knew they would be released within a matter of hours if not days into the interior of the U.S. and that was the goal.

Thousands of children entering the country illegally have become the face of the immigration crisis in the U.S.

We will deploy our men and women in uniform only where there is a need, and where their presence can make a genuine difference in ensuring public safety and an easing of the humanitarian concerns at our southern border.

Because of a massive backlog of asylum cases and an inability to quickly adjudicate and enforce them, more migrants are making the journey to our border.

I reject the federal contention that there exists an overwhelming national security crisis at the southern border, along which are some of the safest communities in the country.

If anyone in the E.U. thinks Italy should keep being a landing point and refugee camp, they have misunderstood.

The immigration issue is about the separation of families, and that is not human, in any country in the world, but especially in the United States. We should not root for a law that separates families.

Countries in which immigration will be suspended would include places like Syria and Libya.And we are going to stop the tens of thousands of people coming in from Syria. We have no idea who they are, where they come from. There's no documentation. There's no paperwork.

Everybody who comes to the EU as a migrant is basically coming illegally.

...the Statue of Liberty's got this invitation: 'Give me your tired, your poor, your reeking homeless--' 'Huddled masses,' said Ira. 'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.' ... Okay, fine. So like everybody in the old countries says, 'Hey, I'm a huddled mass,' and they all wanna come over.

I think all of Europe has been too soft on the refugee crisis.

Australia would play its role in taking displaced people from the Syrian conflict.