Erik Larson 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.

Illegal immigration undermines legal immigration.

[There are] many vicious and inconvertible elements [within the] multitude of foreign immigrants.

The key here is to be fair to the 11 million [illegal immigrants], starting with the [2 million younger illegals] ‘Dreamers'....I’ve stopped letting 30 percent of the people who are mad about immigration determine how I behave. To those who feel like you should deport [younger illegals], boy, I couldn’t disagree with you more…. To the people who object to this, I don’t want you to vote for me because I cannot serve you well.

Everybody will say that they're not opposed to immigration; they're opposed to illegal immigration. That's what I'm saying.

In Tagalog, we call undocumented people 'TNT,' which means tago ng tago, which means 'hiding and hiding.' So that's literally what undocumented means in Tagalog. And that kind of tells you how Filipinos think of this issue, and really any culture, right?

Every time anybody in Washington talks about legal status, amnesty, anything of that nature, it becomes a magnet that lures people in quickly into the United States.

After granting amnesty to illegals 20 years ago, we have gone from 3 million illegals to 11 million illegals. Our government has been fooled once by this amnesty argument, let us not be fooled again.

We will never stop illegal immigration until this country has a comprehensive, realistic immigration policy.

Our nation's immigration policy has been of top concern in recent years, and for good reason. With between eight and twelve million illegal aliens in the United States, it is obviously a problem out of control.

I love immigrants. Legal, illegal - they're not to be despised.

We need the immigrants.

One way to sensitize Washington to the illegal alien problem is to make them pay for it.

As long as there are jobs waiting in our country, there is no way we can stop illegal immigration at the borders.

You can’ t be a national party in America and be perceived as an anti-immigration party.

The closed-door policy [to immigration] is one of the root causes of our wars.

We might have some problems with some countries. Why should we not take into consideration the country of origin [in making immigration decisions]?

I venture to write and congratulate the League through you upon the progress made toward the ultimate exclusion of Japanese and all Mongolians from our shores.

You can’t fix legal immigration until you fix illegal immigration.

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.

Britain’s efforts to restrict immigration have become “a very large obstacle” to hiring the best scientists.

America is the only First World country in the world sharing a long, undefended border with a Third World country, making the crossing both easy and appealing to Mexicans.

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

The annual stream of tens of thousands of newcomers, who largely end up as illegal aliens, must stop. Full is full. We're living on a small piece of land here.

There's a big debate in the U.S. about immigration reform. We need to reflect on who's feeding this country today, why this community has been ignored.