Phil Gramm Quotes

This is a guy [Donald Trump] who has been very consistent on no amnesty, no legalization, for folks who have been coming to the country illegally.

We can't go on forever with 11 million people living in this country in the shadows in an illegal status. We cannot forever have children who were born here - who were brought here by their parents when they were small children to live in the shadows, as well... What's changed, honestly, is that there is a new appreciation on both sides of the aisle, maybe more importantly on the Republican side, that we need to enact a comprehensive immigration reform bill.

Our message to the world will be this. You cannot obtain legal status or become a citizen of the United States by illegally entering our country. That's right. People will know that you can't just smuggle in, hunker down, and wait to be legalized. It's not going to work that way. Those days are over.

Ted [Cruz], you support legalizing people who are in this country illegally.

I talked about deporting people that are here illegally. They're here illegally. We either have a country or we don't. I talked about deporting people that are here illegally.

I will reform our broken visa system. Nearly half of the people in this country illegally came here on legal visas and simply never left. We need to fix that.

No. 1, it [amnesty for illegal aliens] demoralizes the people that are going through the legal process. It's a very clear signal that why go through the legal process if you can accomplish the same thing through the illegal process? And No. 2, it demoralizes the people enforcing the law. So I am not and I will never support - never have and never will support - any effort to grant blanket legalization amnesty to folks who have entered or stayed in this country illegally.

[Donald] Trump has been saying that on, day one, the violent undocumented immigrants will be - will leave the country. But what about the rest? What happens to the other 11 or so million, however many there are?

And the bottom line is, is that they are illegal aliens entering our country. And we simply cannot sustain that kind of activity. Bottom line is it's a backdoor to amnesty and I don't believe the American people support that.

I will not support amnesty for anybody, I mean, that would be rewarding bad behavior.

Illegal aliens have broken our laws, and they shouldn't be rewarded with amnesty and immediate legalization.

For those who are here illegally and not following the rules, we need to send them home.

One simple rule: no amnesty, no special pathway to citizenship.

We feel a pathway to citizenship would reward illegal activity, ... Amnesty encourages further illegal immigration.

We have to identify everybody that's here, and there's going to be an appropriate discussion in Congress on how to deal with an individual who has been here maybe for some long period of time. Amnesty is not on the table period. There will be no amnesty in the United States. We're a country of law and the idea that we're going to tell people that somehow or another that that's all forgiven is not going to happen. How we deal with them is a conversation. I don't know if I know all the answers. I want to talk to the American people.

For one, we very much need in any immigration bill - we need protection for people who are in this country and who have not become citizens, for example, that they are protected and legitimized and given permanent residency here. And we want to see some things of that kind added to the immigration bill.

No path to citizenship. People that want to gain legal status, you heard Donald Trump say again and again, will have to leave the country.

The reality is that there's heartbreak and tragedy that has struck American families because people that came into this country illegally are now involved in criminal enterprise and activity. We don't have the resources or the will to deport them systemically.

We will break the cycle of amnesty and illegal immigration. There will be no amnesty.

I think Donald Trump will articulate what we do with the people [immigrants] who are here.

The effort to combine the general population of this country with the current burgeoning numbers of illegal immigrants is outrageous, simply outrageous.

It's different when you talk about immigration in the abstract... It's very different when you sit in front of a family, and [undocumented] children who grew up in this country, and who go to the same school you once went to... They thought if we only enforce the law, people will self-deport... It's not going to happen. The solution is not the status quo, or deportation when you're talking about breaking up families.

No one believed [the 1986 amnesty for illegal aliens] was tough enough on illegal immigration, and it didn't give enough flexibility on future legal immigration.

My policy will be to detain and deport every illegal alien who is apprehended in this country. And we'll do it with an expedited hearing process so that millions of illegal aliens are not released into the general population with some hearing date down the road.

...you're never going to have a legal immigration system that works if you grant amnesty.