David Dewhurst Quotes

Should we attempt border security first, which I believe we should, we still need to face the fact that comprehensive reform is necessary. This must include a guest worker program and dealing with the 11 million people who are here today that are contributing to our economy.

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.

But the people of Arizona, the people of America, have been promised that our borders would be secured for years and years and years, with it not happening. And I don't believe the people of America, certainly not the people of Arizona, are ready to discuss anything other at this point in time other than securing our borders.

The federal government secures the border; Californians decide how we want to treat our population. I think we need a vibrant guest worker program. If we have one, we're going to stop having a lot of issues at the border.

How can we protect homeland security unless the government stops the invasion of illegal aliens?

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.

I'm on record saying nothing about immigration until we secure the borders. The borders are not secure.

Clearly, border security has been the top domestic issue of the year, and rightly so. Securing our borders is an essential aspect of our national security.

Illegal immigration presents a huge problem. That is why I decided to spend a week along the southern border to see firsthand how bad the problem is and, more importantly, what Congress can do to fix it.

Border security is a complex issue and will remain a top priority during the 2007 legislative year. As Congress works to fix this problem, I will continue to push for strong measures that beef up security at our borders.

These are our borders, and we have to secure our borders.

I disagree with the concept that somehow or another we're going to pack up 10, to 12, to 15 million people and ship them back to the country of origin. That's not going to happen.

We can build the fence. We can triple the border patrol. We can end sanctuary cities by cutting off funding to them. We can end welfare for those here illegally.

I think in the U.S., the border fence is no longer an immigration issue primarily; it's a security issue.

What the president is doing is flooding the job market with illegal immigrants that he is giving temporary work permits to. Not fair.

A vote for Eric Cantor is a vote for open borders. A vote for Eric Cantor is a vote for amnesty.

After granting amnesty to illegals 20 years ago, we have gone from 3 million illegals to 11 million illegals. Our government has been fooled once by this amnesty argument, let us not be fooled again.

We must safely secure our border by investing in more law enforcement and technology, and receiving cooperation from the Mexican government.

Finally, we need more Border Patrol agents. Although Congress has already tripled the number of Border Patrol agents since the late 1980s, more are still needed.

We need to know who's in the United States. We need to know everyone who's in the United States that comes in here from a foreign country. And we have to separate the ones who are dangerous from the ones who aren't. To accomplish that, we need a fence. We need a technological fence. We need a border patrol.

I'm in favor of building the fence, and doing everything technologically to protect our borders. But the other way to secure the border, and one of the things we must do, is put in place good guest-worker programs that employers can actually use.

We need to make sure we have secure borders.

If you support amnesty, you should vote for the Democrats.

We all learned in kindergarten that the beginning is a very good place to start. As we have this debate on illegal immigration and illegal entry into this country, let's begin at the very beginning by sealing the borders to this great Nation.

We must curtail the flow of illegal immigrants across the Mexican border.