Manu Chao Quotes

Immigration has always been a concept that inflames passions.

The open borders position may sound new and radical, but it is simply a call for the return of lost liberties. When the Statue of Liberty was erected in 1886, most of the world’s borders could be freely crossed without passports. Passport requirements had sometimes existed before and were still in place in backward Tsarist Russia, but the more liberal governments of advanced European nations regulated migration, as modern democracies regulate speech, only rather lightly and in exceptional cases, if at all. Comprehensive restrictions on international movement, which almost everyone today regards as a normal and necessary government function, are really an innovation of the twentieth century, which emerged as liberalism gave way to nationalism and socialism in the wake of World War I. Although the reasons for border control were The open borders position may sound new and radical, but it is simply a call for the return of lost liberties. When the Statue of Liberty was erected in 1886, most of the world’s borders could be freely crossed without passports. Passport requirements had sometimes existed before and were still in place in backward tsarist Russia, but the more liberal governments of advanced European nations regulated migration, as modern democracies regulate speech, only rather lightly and in exceptional cases, if at all. Comprehensive restrictions on international movement, which almost everyone today regards as a normal and necessary government function, are really an innovation of the twentieth century, which emerged as liberalism gave way to nationalism and socialism in the wake of World War I. Although the reasons for border control were often explicitly racist—such as the national origins quotas of the 1924 U.S. Immigration Act—the restrictions were also motivated by bona fide national security concerns, as well as a desire to protect native wages and welfare states from immigrant competition and foreign dependents.

We simply cannot allow people to pour into the United States undetected, undocumented, unchecked, and circumventing the line of people who are waiting patiently, diligently, and lawfully to become immigrants in this country.

Soros wants to fill Italy and Europe with migrants.

We have to get away from thinking that everyone coming to the United States is a threat.

All people have a natural and inherent right to emigrate from one State to another

The reason that America was a First World nation was that we had a First World population, and as we continue to be inundated with people from Third World nations, we are going to become a Third World nations….Desperate situations call for rash actions!

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

We all agree on the need to better secure the border and to punish employers who choose to hire illegal immigrants. We are a generous and welcoming people, here in the United States, but those who enter the country illegally, and those who employ them, disrespect the rule of law and they are showing disregard for those who are following the law.

The American people are a welcoming and generous people. But those who enter our country illegally, and those who employ them, disrespect the rule of law. And because we live in an age where terrorists are challenging our borders, we simply cannot allow people to pour into the United States undetected, undocumented, and unchecked. Americans are right to demand better border security and better enforcement of the immigration laws.

I feel that our attitude to our borders is wrong; it's the first time that an awful lot of people think you can and should just close your border and remain in this splendid isolation.

Our borders are being overrun.

I worked for 'The Chronicle' in San Francisco, and immigration is a big issue in that region.

Although I don't have anything against people from other countries, the higher the influx into England the more the British identity disappears.

Every town has become a border town and every State has become a border State.

I'm a big supporter of immigration.

I am, you know, adamantly against illegal immigrants.

The poor economic health of Europe contributed to the migrant crisis. All the migrants wanted to flood to the few healthy countries—–like Germany and the U.K.

Resolutions of the State Council of Ohio, Junior Order of United American Mechanics urging passage of laws to prevent the landing on our shores of the vicious, lawless, pauperized, and anarchistic elements of foreign countries.

Our brother (many of the Jews of the Middle East) has gone to Europe and to the West [and] come back a Russified Jew, a Polish Jew, a German Jew, an English Jew. He has come back with a totally different conception of things. Western and not Eastern…, coming back with imperialistic ideas, with reactionary or revolutionary ideas… he is not the old cousin, and we do not extend to him a very good welcome

At the same time as we are closing our borders we are sending mixed signals to countries where we are helping the rich, and the poor will cross the borders to come here.

This is nothing less than a national tragedy…. It is time to consider these refugees arriving from Poland and elsewhere purely on their merits as migrants and in an unsentimental light. In the last 50 years these people have swarmed all over Europe, coming principally from Armenia, Russia and the Balkans. We should remember that they are European neither by race, standards, nor culture. They are, in fact, an Eastern people. In 2000 years no one but Britain has been successfully able to absorb them, and for the most part they owe loyalty and allegiance to none.

If you can’t control your borders, you can’t control immigration. And if we can’t control immigration, there is no way re can reform immigration.

The only people you will issue visas for are those that arrive in coffins.

We cannot and will not surrender our border to those who wish to exploit our history of compassion and justice.