Michelle Lujan Grisham Quotes

Well, I do want to talk about the challenges at the border. New Mexico, if you will, has become an Ellis Island and we want to take that issue seriously and we're not going to shy away that it presents significant challenges.

Well, we have a crisis along the Mexican border right now, a state of emergency as declared by a bipartisan group of Texas House members just last fall. You know, we've had almost 200,000 OTMs - the government categorizes OT 'other, other than Mexicans' - along the Mexican border.

The problem we are dealing with at the border is not a Democratic problem. It is not a Republican problem. It is an American problem.

In 2019 folks were coming across the border and were sitting down, they were sitting down waiting for Border Patrol to come up because they knew they would be released within a matter of hours if not days into the interior of the U.S. and that was the goal.

I recognize and appreciate the legitimate concerns of residents and officials in southwestern New Mexico, particularly Hidalgo County, who have asked for our assistance, as migrants and asylum-seekers continue to appear at their doorstep.

Thousands of children entering the country illegally have become the face of the immigration crisis in the U.S.

Our borders are being overrun.

The Trump administration recognizes that most refugees and immigrants are good people, but practical and temporary measures must be taken to keep this nation safe from the few bad individuals who seek to harm us.

Because of a massive backlog of asylum cases and an inability to quickly adjudicate and enforce them, more migrants are making the journey to our border.

I reject the federal contention that there exists an overwhelming national security crisis at the southern border, along which are some of the safest communities in the country.

People have accused me at times of having too big of a heart.But I have to also to say I must keep the people of my state safe. So we take a pause [in taking refugees].

My message to everyone: the next time you hear about migrant children near the border, just picture them as your own. Then think what you would want our government to do.

Hopping the fence or wading the Rio Grande River isn't part of America's immigration process.

I believe that the great majority of people coming here illegally have no other option. They want to provide for their family. But we need to control our border.

The plight of the terrified Central American children who have flooded across the U.S. border to escape violence and poverty in their homelands has launched a passionate and often bitter debate in Washington.

The recent, single-year influx of unaccompanied minors from foreign countries into the United States is a direct result of President Obama's policies of encouraging amnesty and failing to enforce existing immigration laws.

We cannot afford all this illegal immigration and everything that comes with it, everything from the crime and to the drugs and the kidnappings and the extortion and the beheadings and the fact that people can't feel safe in their community. It's wrong! It's wrong!

We must safely secure our border by investing in more law enforcement and technology, and receiving cooperation from the Mexican government.

We need a human presence at the border and a humane presence at the border.

Denmark must not be the social security office for the rest of the world.

Like all Americans, Arkansans hurt for the Syrian refugees. The hardships they face are beyond most of our understanding, and my thoughts and prayers are with them, but I will not support a policy that poses real risk to Americans.

America has a long and proud history of providing safe harbor for refugees. We must continue to do so, but in a way that keeps America safe.

No level of border security, no wall, doubling the size of the border patrol, all these things will not stop the illegal migration from countries as long as a 7-year-old is desperate enough to flee on her own and travel the entire length of Mexico because of the poverty and the violence in her country.

I believe that if we don't offer legal ways of emigrating to Europe and immigrating within Europe, we will be lost. If those who come - who are, generally speaking, the poor and needy - are no longer able to enter the house of Europe through the front door, they'll keep making their way in through the back windows.

We have to get control of our borders.