Patrick Henry Quotes

For a round hundred years it was a national ideal that the United States should be the asylum for the poor and the oppressed of every land. This very early came to be known as the "traditional" American attitude towards immigration.

People are not trying to get into China, they're trying to get out of China. The United States is the only great country where people are trying to get into to this country for obvious reasons.

The early colonists came over with motives no less colonial than the later. They did not come to be assimilated in an American melting pot. They did not come to adopt the culture of the American Indian. They had not the smallest intention of 'giving themselves without reservation' to the new country. They came to get freedom to live as they wanted to. They came to escape from the stifling air and chaos of the old world; they came to make their fortune in a new land.

America looked like the land of the future, separated by an ocean from the misfortunes, follies, and crimes of Europe.

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

I think it fortunate for the United States to have become the asylum for so many virtuous patriots of different denominations.

Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

Every year, thousands of immigrants, asylum seekers and migrants assume great hardships to find safety in America. They choose our country because they see the United States as a land of justice, as a place of safety, and a beacon of hope.

The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations And Religions; whom we shall wellcome to a participation of all our rights and previleges...

Who says Australia offers not a home for every poor Englishman, or any other countryman that finds his way to our shores? And what sort of thanks do we get for it?

America is the last great goal of these migrations.

My parents came to the United States in the early years of this century as part of a wave of Russian Jewish immigrants seeking freedom and opportunity in the New World.

The great thing about the United States and the historically magnetic effect it has had on a lot of people like me is its generosity, to put it simply.

We shall be inconsistent with ourselves if, after boasting of having opened an asylum for the oppressed of all nations … we make the terms of admission to the full enjoyment of that asylum so hard as is now proposed.

Since its very beginnings, America has been a refuge for the persecuted— a “city on the hill” beckoning the victims of political, religious, ethnic, and other forms of repression.

We are a compassionate nation, taking in the refugees and those, you know, fleeing, the huddled masses yearning to be free. This is something that's deeply ingrained in our hearts in the United States.

The United States was built on the idea that we could create a free country that would serve as a haven for those fleeing persecution.

For millions on the outside looking in, this is where they want to live - America.

The United States government has always been proud of the welcome it has extended to good men of every nation, seeking freedom and homes and bread.

I really feel that my life story is a continuation of the Great American Dream - the immigrant who comes to this country and is allowed to excel. How many other countries would let me do that?

For generations, America has served as a beacon of hope and freedom for those outside her borders, and as a land of limitless opportunity for those risking everything to seek a better life. Their talents and contributions have continued to enrich our country.

Living in New York City, I am reminded by the Statue of Liberty that the United States of America has always welcomed those yearning to breathe free and seek a better life.

I'm constantly saying to myself, 'I'm lucky I was born in the United States.'

In Romania, of course, gymnastics is among the most popular sports, and my parents had a dream of escaping the Ceausescu regime and giving their child a better life. So they came to the United States and put me in gymnastics.

My parents were lured to America by the democracy here promised. In our family, freedom was a word to conjure by. Hoping for larger privileges for the growing family of children, they brought them to the New World, the world of many intellectual as well as material advantages.