Jose Antonio Vargas Quotes

I found out that I was illegal when I was 16. I'm gay. I'm Filipino.

For decades, I have cringed whenever someone called me 'illegal,' as if I'm an insect on someone's back. I found out I didn't have the right papers - that I was here illegally - when I tried to get a driver's permit at age 16. But I am not 'illegal.' No person is.

I was an illegal immigrant.

I thought it was quite wonderful coming to America. I think immigration is a very difficult thing, but America is a very wonderful place.

'Dream Act' kids are like all other American kids, with the exception that they have to work harder to excel in school, they live in fear of deportation, and they worry about their future.

Of all the questions I get asked as an undocumented immigrant in the United States, there are two - asked in various permutations via email, social media or in person - that chill me to the bone: 'Why don't you just make yourself legal?' And: 'Why don't you get in the back of the line?'

All of us take offense to anyone who reaps the rewards of living in America without taking on the responsibilities of living in America. And undocumented immigrants who desperately want to embrace those responsibilities see little option but to remain in the shadows, or risk their families being torn apart.

I hope I'll have the opportunity to debate how we reform and update our immigration system. I will relate my own story and that of the countless immigrants whose American Dream stories have helped build our country into the greatest nation in the world.

Every single immigrant we have, undocumented or documented, is a future American. That's just the truth of it.

I want to start by making a pledge, a pledge to those from the Windrush generation who have been in this country for decades and yet have struggled to navigate through the immigration system: This never should have been the case, and I will do whatever it takes to put it right.

When you're the child of undocumented immigrants, you learn to keep your mouth shut.

I learned at a very young age that my parents were undocumented.

Throughout my childhood, I watched my parents try to become legal but to no avail. They lost their money to people they believed to be attorneys but who ultimately never helped. That meant my childhood was haunted by the fear that they would be deported.

My grandfather was an undocumented immigrant. My great-grandmother, my bisabuela, carried him over the border in her arms.

My dad was undocumented for a period of time, my mom was also undocumented for a period of time.

My parents were desperately trying to become documented citizens of this country and tried very hard to get there, but to no avail.

My father, who worked as a dishwasher, was especially anxious. He did not like being here undocumented.

I came in as a legal immigrant. My dad came first. We had to wait about a year.

Our immigration system is a broken system that needs to be fixed. We need reform that provides hardworking people of good character with a real path towards citizenship.

I never thought that I would come to live in the United States. I was not pursuing the American dream.

My first 'Daily Show' piece was pretending I had this terrible immigrant journey, so I went to talk to an immigration lawyer who would help out people, and I ran into him in Penn Station about three months after I'd gotten the green card. I said, 'I got my green card yesterday.' And he hugged me because he understood that level of relief.

We should not blur the lines between legal and illegal immigrants. Millions of people around the world have gone through the process to come here legally and they followed the rules that required them to pay a fee, learn English, and learn about American history and government.

There are compelling reasons to implement a true America First immigration plan, starting with border security. We are a land of immigrants. Immigration, with assimilation, has generally been good for America.

Washington, D.C. is what is broken, not the immigration policies. We have good laws. We have people suffer every day because of government's failure to enforce the law and be respectful to the process we have. We have a pathway to citizenship already in place.

You know, I'm one of millions of undocumented people in this country who are living kind of under the shadows. And in many ways, coming out, it was my way of - at the end of the day, I think we have to tell the truth about this immigration system. And because of that, I had to tell the truth about myself.