David Brooks Quotes

President [Barack] Obama has talked about fundamentally transforming this country. There's 7 billion people across the face of the globe, many of whom want to come to this country. If they come legally, great. But if they come illegally and they get amnesty, that is how we fundamentally change this country, and it really is striking.

When you talk about the problem of illegal immigration, people are angry and polarized. When you talk about the answers, the debate gets a little different.

Many talk about a guest worker program. I think most reasonable people believe that a guest worker program in the farming industry, perhaps in the gardening and landscape industries, is reasonable.

Illegal immigration can never be completely stopped, no matter how high the wall or how many patrol agents you have watching it.

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

[Donald] Trump is touching a nerve because people want the wall to be built. They want to see an end to illegal immigration. They want to see it, and we all do. But we all have different ways of getting there.

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.

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.

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

[Donald Trump] will stand on the principles that have underpinned his commitment to end illegal immigration in this country. And that's what people will learn more about in the days ahead.

[Hillary Clinton] is been honest about how many people she wants to enter the country unquestioned, unvetted, both illegal immigrants and refugees.

I appreciate the good work that senators in both parties have put into trying to fix our broken immigration system. There are some good elements in this proposal, especially increasing the resources and manpower to secure our border and also improving and streamlining legal immigration. However, I have deep concerns with the proposed path to citizenship. To allow those who came here illegally to be placed on such a path is both inconsistent with rule of law and profoundly unfair to the millions of legal immigrants who waited years, if not decades, to come to America legally.

I have met with many of the great parents who lost their children to sanctuary cities and open borders. So many people, so many, many people. So sad.

I think [ immigration] is still is a problem, whether it's 11 million or 2 million. Why is it - why have the situation decreased? Are we going to say because of the crackdown or are we going to say that the jobs are not here?

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

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.

The only people benefiting from the status quo in immigration [in the USA] today are the people trafficking human beings across the border, and the people who are hiring illegal labor for cheap purposes.

Donald Trump wants to look at this situation [with immigrants] and deal with it in a humane way, and quite frankly, you know, I think this is the kind of thing people expect from a president of the United States.

President Obama has moved millions of people out. Nobody knows about it, nobody talks about it. But under Obama, millions of people have been moved out of America. They've been deported. Hillary Clinton doesn't want to say that, but that's what's happened, and that's what happened big league.

I like Donald Trump. I appreciate that he's focusing on illegal immigration. It's an issue I've been fighting a long, long time. I think people are very concerned, for example, about the problems of sanctuary cities and - and that is something that's a - that people are finally turning their attention to.

You couldn't have a more clear choice between Donald Trump and I, who will end illegal immigration in this country, and - and Hillary Clinton, who will pursue more of the same, executive amnesty, open borders, which the American people are sick and tired of.

Let me tell you who the immigration system in America does not serve. It does not serve you the American people.

I've made it clear in my reporting that we need a rational, effective and humane system. I don't support amnesty, and for that reason amnesty groups attack me. That's fine, it's a free country. Their attacks don't give me too much concern.

It's amnesty that America can't afford. We have to stop people from coming in illegally. This will be a green light for anyone who wants to come to America illegally and then be granted citizenship one day... The majority that are here illegally are low-skilled or may not even have a high school diploma. The Republican Party is not going to compete over who can give more social programs out. They will become Democrats because of the social programs they'll depend on.