Patrick Leahy Quotes

Our message to the world will be this. You cannot obtain legal status or become a citizen of the United States by illegally entering our country. That's right. People will know that you can't just smuggle in, hunker down, and wait to be legalized. It's not going to work that way. Those days are over.

I happen to believe in immigration reform but I don't believe that that means that every person who has come into America should be able to stay.

[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?

They say there are something like 12 million illegal immigrants in the country right now, with another half a million coming every year. Remember in the last election when the Democrats claimed there was two Americas? Turns out one of them was Mexico.

The fact of the matter is, this country is not going to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants. What are we supposed to do with them? What are we supposed to do with these kids?

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.

Our nation's immigration policy has been of top concern in recent years, and for good reason. With between eight and twelve million illegal aliens in the United States, it is obviously a problem out of control.

The key here is to be fair to the 11 million [illegal immigrants], starting with the [2 million younger illegals] ‘Dreamers'....I’ve stopped letting 30 percent of the people who are mad about immigration determine how I behave. To those who feel like you should deport [younger illegals], boy, I couldn’t disagree with you more…. To the people who object to this, I don’t want you to vote for me because I cannot serve you well.

Any proposal that allows people who are here illegally to cut to the front of the line is amnesty.

Illegal aliens have broken our laws, and they shouldn't be rewarded with amnesty and immediate legalization.

I support DACA, which prevents the deportation of undocumented immigrants who came to America as children. Congress should cement this program into law by supporting the DREAM Act, which has overwhelming bipartisan support.

Imagine this country without the 20 million illegals that are here. Imagine the state of California. And this is not... It's nothing more than an exercise. It's nothing more than a little game to play with yourself. Because it's instructive.

The reality is that there's heartbreak and tragedy that has struck American families because people that came into this country illegally are now involved in criminal enterprise and activity. We don't have the resources or the will to deport them systemically.

I think [ immigration] is still is a problem, whether it's 11 million or 2 million. Why is it - why have the situation decreased? Are we going to say because of the crackdown or are we going to say that the jobs are not here?

We've even lost the definition of immigration. "Immigration" today, if you listen to the left, equals anybody who wants to come into the country should be allowed. That's not what immigration is. That's illegal immigration, and we ought to all oppose it.

The effort to combine the general population of this country with the current burgeoning numbers of illegal immigrants is outrageous, simply outrageous.

The estimated 11 or so million undocumented immigrants currently in the United States. This is what Mr. [Donald ] Trump promised back in November.

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.

We will have a mechanism for dealing with people in this country that - you heard the word humanely again. It is going to be fair. It is going to be tough. But there will be no path to legalization, no path to citizenship unless people leave the country.

We have to deal with the 11 million individuals who are here illegally. The bill that Senator [Marco] Rubio put forward, I think is a great place to start.

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.

When you talk about the problem of illegal immigration, people are angry and polarized. When you talk about the answers, the debate gets a little different.

There's no doubt that the Donald Trump administration, part of the red meat that he ran on from the first day when he announced his candidacy was a very extreme anti-immigrant rhetoric that he kept up through the whole campaign - the wall, deportation, more detention. And I think that that particular piece of red meat, he's going to throw out every once in a while and try to - of all the commitments that he's made, this is the one that is most disturbing, because it's one that he will try to fulfill through his presidency.

Illegal immigrants should be required to return to their home country.

Look, folks, everybody knows we're not gonna kick these DREAMers out of the country. I know that a lot of people think that we should have no mercy here on... "Mercy" is the wrong word. That, if we're gonna have border security, we're gonna have border security. If you're illegal and you're here illegally, you gotta go back and try to get in legally. I understand that.