Anand Giridharadas Quotes

Citizenship is a privilege. We don't grant it to people because they think they deserve it. What have you done for the United States?

Why should citizenship be a matter of birth? The premise held by those who want to end birthright citizenship is that some people deserve it and some do not - that the status shouldn't be handed out automatically. Frankly, that's a premise worth considering.

If there's amnesty leading to citizenship, I'm going to vote against it again.

Rising leftists openly call for open borders and seek to erase the distinction between citizens and non-citizens. I tell you what, if you erase our borders, you erase our country.

United States naturalization is a privilege not a right, and those who have had this privilege bestowed upon them must respect and uphold the laws of our land.

I would like it to be the rules all round the world that that is the case - you manage the country of your birth.

Donald Trump proposes to deport 16 million people, 11 million who are here without documents. And both Donald Trump and Mike Pence want to get rid of birthright citizenship. So if you're born here, but your parents don't have documents, they want to eliminate that. That's another 4.5 million people.

These are people who haven't gone through the legal means to becoming citizens like our forefathers did. They want all the benefits but none of the responsibilities.

Republicans say they want citizenship to truly mean something. Let's be equal-opportunity about it and test everyone, including those very Republicans and others whose forbears came here generations ago.

You would have a huge statelessness problem if you don't consider a child born abroad a U.S. citizen.

The current practice of extending U.S. citizenship to hundreds of thousands of 'anchor babies' must end because it creates a magnet for illegal immigration into our country. Now is the time to ensure that the laws in this country do not encourage law-breaking.

We don't want two-tier people in America. Those who are legal but not citizens, and citizens.

Millions of us, myself included, go back generations in this country, with ancestors who put in the painstaking work to become citizens. So we don't like the notion that anyone might get a free pass to American citizenship.

To be able to live and work in the United States is a privilege.

Be it enacted ..., That all non-citizen Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States be, and they are hereby, declared to be citizens of the United States

Hereafter no State court or court of the United States shall admit Chinese to citizenship; and all laws in conflict with this act are hereby repealed.

This grant of citizenship to U.S.-born offspring is one of several factors that make illegal immigration attractive. The primary draw, of course, is the availability of jobs, but there is evidence that at least some illegal immigration is for the purpose of gaining citizenship.

Birthright citizenship in America is part of something larger: The American longing to sever from history, to be a place of new beginnings.

Congress should pass a law repealing birthright citizenship for children of foreign citizens, with the sole exception being children of legal permanent residents. Children born to business travelers, foreign students, tourists, and illegal aliens would not be automatically citizens of the United States.

The implication here is that those who came to America legally over the years are somehow second-class citizens.

Citizenship must be precious, not handed out like candy in a parade. We don't ride along and throw out citizenship like you do M&M's or Tootsie Rolls or whatever it is we're tossing out in our parades.

French citizenship should be either inherited or merited.

And we'll build a path to citizenship for millions of immigrants who are already contributing to our economy!

Any proposal that allows people who are here illegally to cut to the front of the line is amnesty.

I could have had Spanish nationality, and I didn't take it.