Howard Dean Quotes

There are parents who are really angry that I decided to portray people who have come into the country illegally as decent human beings.

I would be very distressed if we were to try to shut our doors to immigration in this country. I frankly don't envisage that happening, but I understand that there's always that tendency on the part of people who are here who, having come here four generations earlier, want to shut the door. And I don't think that's a good idea.

When one refers to an immigrant as an "illegal alien," one is using the term as a noun. The user of the term is effectively saying that the individual, as opposed to any actions that the individual has taken, is illegal. The term “illegal alien” implies that a person’s existence is criminal. I’m not aware of any other circumstance in our common vernacular where a crime is considered to render the individual – as opposed to the individual’s actions – as being illegal. We don’t even refer to our most dangerous and vile criminals as being “illegal” people.

How you frame a debate is very important. When you call someone an 'illegal alien,' you've already stacked the deck against them.

The immigrant blame game is constant. Cynical politicians believe it drives poll numbers; cynical commentators believe it drives TV ratings.

The one place where I do think our culture today has to be extremely careful is this whole thing about illegal aliens. Because any time you start defining a significant block of the population as 'others,' or as less than you, you start getting into dangerous waters.

In U.S. discourse, immigrants are mostly represented as less than human, a policy problem, or as just that, a category, and categories are prisons.

Democrats in sanctuary states support amnesty for illegal aliens, just so long as those illegal aliens don't wind up in sanctuary states.

I have no truck with this notion that immigrants are to blame for all of the country's problems.

Let's be very clear first off. Nothing has changed about Donald Trump's position on dealing with illegal immigration.

So where are they moving today? They're going to move to be meaner to immigrants in order to bring their conference together.

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.

Number one, it is absolutely critical that we tone down the rhetoric when it comes to the immigration debate, because there has been an undertone that has been ugly. Oftentimes, it has been directed at the Hispanic community. We have seen hate crimes skyrocket in the wake of the immigration debate as it has been conducted in Washington, and that is unacceptable.

Every time one of us starts talking about more effective immigration controls, somebody else throws up the Statue of Liberty, how we're a nation of immigrants and all of that. The debate takes on tinges of racism, emotion.

Illegal immigration is praised only by those who benefit directly from it, whether in the familial sense of inexpensive nannies, cooks, or gardeners; or in the corporate interest of cheap labor in the hospitality industries, agriculture, and construction; or in the political sense of new liberal constituents; or in the tribal sense of expanding the so-called La Raza base. But the vast majority of Americans accept that when federal law is ignored, chaos ensues.

I knew Arizona's SB 1070 would be controversial when I introduced it, but I did not expect the national immigration debate to revolve around a state law. While the anti-American open-borders Left attack me and the law as 'racist,' 'nativist' and their other empty smear words, the vast majority of the people of Arizona and America support the law.

The immigration bill is going to pass. We're going to have a bill. It's going to get through the Senate. I think the fundamentals are there and the foundation is strong and the bill is going to happen. The House is going to be trickier, but I think it's going to happen there too.

To say that there should be no immigration, yes, that is definitely contrary to the best values of America that were laid out in the Declaration of Independence and since.

Some people would say we're already under attack by aliens - not space aliens, but illegal aliens.

Giving people like me a green card, a passport, and a driver's license? That's not going to be the end of the immigration conversation and debate in this country. It's like saying we elected Barack Obama president, so all of the racial problems are done. Right? I mean in some ways, the immigration conversation is just starting. Which is why when we started this campaign, we didn't call it Define Immigrant, we called it Define American. That's the question. That's what's at stake.

I'm not excusing the illegal act. I am here illegally. I'm here illegally, without authorization. That's a fact. That's nothing you can call the Orwellian cops about. But I am a human being, so therefore I am not illegal. That's also a fact.

Going back to the discussion we were having about immigration reform, some of the most challenging discussions I've had are with activists who essentially would argue that any immigrant from Central America, let's say, who gets here to this country should be allowed to stay because their country is dangerous, their country is poor, and the opportunities for that mom and that kid are much greater here, and why would you send them back?

It is a lie that to talk to Hispanics you have to talk about amnesty. Let me tell you, the only Hispanics that are in favor of amnesty are the illegals.

The anti-immigrant logic has basically saturated our world. I'm staying, and I'm fighting.