Daniel Patrick Moynihan Quotes

However, we still have the problem of free travel and movement, since the Travel Documents issued by UNMIK as the substitute to passports, are not fully recognized yet by all countries.

We believe that visa quotas should be lifted and people should visit anywhere they wish freely.

There is a certain amount of momentum that is achieved when one country after another reopens their borders.

In the nineteenth century some parts of the world were unexplored, but there was almost no restriction on travel.:; Up to 1914 you did not need a passport for any country except Russia.:; The European emigrant, if he could scrape together a few pounds for the passage, simply set sail for America or Australia, and when he got there no questions were asked.:; In the eighteenth century it had been quite normal and safe to travel in a country with which your own country was at war.

When they come to Europe, they are confronted by still closed borders. Thus, the concept of open borders is a very selective concept, one that is not taken seriously at all in the experience of non-Europeans.

The open borders position may sound new and radical, but it is simply a call for the return of lost liberties. When the Statue of Liberty was erected in 1886, most of the world’s borders could be freely crossed without passports. Passport requirements had sometimes existed before and were still in place in backward Tsarist Russia, but the more liberal governments of advanced European nations regulated migration, as modern democracies regulate speech, only rather lightly and in exceptional cases, if at all. Comprehensive restrictions on international movement, which almost everyone today regards as a normal and necessary government function, are really an innovation of the twentieth century, which emerged as liberalism gave way to nationalism and socialism in the wake of World War I. Although the reasons for border control were The open borders position may sound new and radical, but it is simply a call for the return of lost liberties. When the Statue of Liberty was erected in 1886, most of the world’s borders could be freely crossed without passports. Passport requirements had sometimes existed before and were still in place in backward tsarist Russia, but the more liberal governments of advanced European nations regulated migration, as modern democracies regulate speech, only rather lightly and in exceptional cases, if at all. Comprehensive restrictions on international movement, which almost everyone today regards as a normal and necessary government function, are really an innovation of the twentieth century, which emerged as liberalism gave way to nationalism and socialism in the wake of World War I. Although the reasons for border control were often explicitly racist—such as the national origins quotas of the 1924 U.S. Immigration Act—the restrictions were also motivated by bona fide national security concerns, as well as a desire to protect native wages and welfare states from immigrant competition and foreign dependents.

A lot of Americans don't have a passport, never will have a passport. Not only will they not travel, they don't want to travel.

Many, if not most, countries blithely expect their citizens to have carte blanche access to the U.S., "land of immigrants," as a veritable human right, but put up all manner of barriers to Americans who want to emigrate in the opposite direction.

When I announced on my Facebook page that I'm coming to Israel, people started telling me that I shouldn't go there, but I figured that if I'm not going to come here, then I guess I can't go back to the United States anymore and I can never go to Russia again and I should probably never go back to Germany and I should probably never go back to France and I should probably never go back to England....All I see here is a really beautiful city.

I'm not saying we need to stop immigration at all; people can come from wherever.

In case anyone needs reminding, it was the relentless drive of the tourism industry and kowtowing State Department bureaucrats that led to the Bush-era Visa Express Program, which relaxed visa policies, eliminated in-person consulate interviews and opened the door to the 9/11 hijackers.

If I were king of the world, babies born in airplanes, balloons and blimps would, instead of choosing to be German, Maldivian or American, all get special heavenly blue passports with a stork on the cover labeled 'Sky Baby' - and they'd be allowed to come and go anywhere they please.

The birds never needed passports... We always thought, the birds can go wherever they want, and we couldn't, really. The birds were very much the symbol of... free movement for me.

Is it unreasonable to have proof of citizenship when entering another country?

The freedom I have as a U.S. citizen is unparalleled. Despite the fact people may not like American passports, having that passport affords me more freedoms than any other passport could.

There is a huge number of people outside our borders who would love to come here. In fact, many of them come here, get well educated, and then are required to leave... This is a factor in income inequality.

So far we have not convinced the Chinese authorities. My own brother was refused a visa on what was probably my last chance of seeing him when he was going around the world on a tour. Scott Nearing was similarly refused.

Each year 70 million Chinese leave China freely—go out to the West and the rest of the world—and freely return to China which some call a prison.

And so border security is not simply preventing people from getting in, but very often preventing somebody from leaving for the wrong reasons.

I think that when we take the long view, the notion that some people are deemed less worthy of being able to move - to not have the right to cross borders - over time, that's going to seem as outmoded and as unfair, really, as racial discrimination or other kinds of discrimination.

England is not very easy to get in and out of.

When I was starting out, it was almost impossible for me to get visas to travel to tournaments.

Having a United States passport has been an incredible asset, and I hope that will continue to be the case.

I got my first passport in 1989, when I was 28.

Whatever happens with Brexit, what I am absolutely convinced will not happen is that free movement of individuals, free movement of people, will not change, North and South without passports.