Pete Hoekstra Quotes

In my experience, given how large the border is and given how many people are coming across the border, I mean, look, if a child can come across the border, and we know there's hundreds of thousands of children that have, then what makes you think that ISIS and terrorists can't?

We know that ISIS desires operationally to use the Syrian refugee program to infiltrate countries, to use migrant flows as a way to gain an operational foothold in other countries.

I can reveal today that the U.S. government has information to indicate that individuals tied to terrorist groups in Syria have already attempted to gain access to our country through the U.S. refugee program.

Syrian refugees might be Isis, they may be the great Trojan horse of all time.

If necessary, Italy is prepared to fight against Islamic State in Libya because the Italian government cannot accept a terrorist danger in power just a few hours away from Italy by boat.

Americans are rightly concerned about the security and the integrity of the nation's borders because the system is broken. Some are concerned about the possibility of terrorists crossing our borders and coming into our cities.

We brought disaster upon... Arab refugees, by inviting them and bringing pressure to bear upon them to leave... We have rendered them dispossessed... We have accustomed them to begging... We have participated in lowering their moral and social level... Then we exploited them in executing crimes of murder, arson, and throwing bombs upon... men, women and children - all this in service of political purposes...

They [illegal immigrants] would have young women who became pregnant and would get them into the United States to have a baby. They wouldn't even have to pay anything for the baby. And then they would return back where they could be raised and coddled as future terrorists. And then one day, 20, 30 years down the road, they can be sent in to help destroy our way of life.

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.

Both sides in Syria are bad. One side is a brutal dictator, and the other includes Islamists and terrorists who are dangerous already and who would be brutal in power if given the chance.

They only have to be right one time, the terrorists do, and we have to be wrong one time.

There is a clear link between illegal migrants coming to Europe and the spread of terrorism.

Ours is an age in which thousands are driven daily from their homelands by the unforgiving brutalities of war, terrorism, political oppression, starvation, disease, economic piracy, and the relentless suffocation of that singular breath which makes human beings individuals.

...in the midst of migrants in search of a better life there are people in need of protection: refugees and asylum-seekers, women and children victims of trafficking...Many move simply to avoid dying of hunger. When leaving is not an option but a necessity, this is more than poverty.

Migrants all over the world are pushed and pulled across borders by hunger, terror and climate change. It happened to my own family.

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.

We can't be afraid to call the enemy what it is: Radical Islamic terrorism.

The fate of Syria hangs in the balance, but it is entirely possible that the fall of the Assad regime will result in anarchy and cause Syria to turn into a second Afghanistan, a base for anti-Israel terrorism.

Terrorists have already attacked our Nation once. There is every reason to believe that they will try again - possibly with a weapon of mass destruction; a weapon that could be smuggled into our ports.

I think the War on Terror has succeeded in creating more terror, more terrorists, a less safe America, and a less safe world.

We have terrorists coming into the country both through our Northern and Southern borders.

The war in Iraq, the abuse of detainees, electronic eavesdropping, Guantanamo Bay - these things were all done on our behalf and they may turn out in the end to have created more terrorists.

We live in the age of the refugee, the age of the exile.

And you know, it's not just illegal immigration. Terrorists can come across. They're devastating our ranchers down in southern Arizona - drop houses, kidnapping, automobile accidents, extortion, drugs, the spill-over with the drug cartels. We're facing all of it.

The war being fought in Afghanistan and Iraq is bringing about a fundamental change to the environment that has given rise and power to the extremists who export terrorism.