Immigrant Rights Quotes

Some of the hardest-working and most productive people in this city are undocumented aliens. If you come here and you work hard and you happen to be in an undocumented status, you're one of the people who we want in this city. You're somebody that we want to protect, and we want you to get out from under what is often a life of being like a fugitive, which is really unfair.

In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American.

Look, for example, at the obvious, immediate, practical example of illegal Mexican immigration. Now, that Mexican immigration, over the border, is a good thing. It's a good thing for the illegal immigrants. It's a good thing for the United States. It's a good thing for the citizens of the country. But, it's only good so long as its illegal....

I am, you know, adamantly against illegal immigrants.

Shall we refuse to the unhappy fugitives from distress that hospitality which the savages of the wilderness extended to our fathers arriving in this land? Shall oppressed humanity find no asylum on this globe? …. might not the general character and capabilities of a citizen be safely communicated to everyone manifesting a bona fide purpose of embarking his life and fortunes permanently with us.

I'm an immigrant, a legal immigrant to the United States. I only became a citizen five years ago. Every day, for seven months, I pinched myself as I was walking in and out of the West Wing, so it's only in America, right? Only in America.

The most urgent task I have is to help those British citizens who came from the Caribbean, the so-called Windrush generation, and make sure they are all treated with the decency and the fairness they deserve.

No country has been more invigorated by immigrant culture, more rewarded by immigrant labor and immigrant ideas than America.

Where's the CNN town hall for sanctuary cities?

I supported this bill. I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and who have lived here even though sometime back they may have entered illegally.

How can a human being be illegal?

I'm really into the rights of immigrants, the rights of the working poor. I'm one of those little activist types. I probably would have just gone to law school. And the scary part is that I was one of those kids who always tested really well. You put a test in front of me, and I would have been like do-do-do-do-do. I probably would have been some community lawyer somewhere - if anything, that's probably what I would have been doing.

We are a nation of immigrants. It is immigrants who brought to this land the skills of their hands and brains to make it a beacon of opportunity and of hope for all men.

I do not support amnesty. I do not support driver's licenses for undocumented immigrants.

I love immigrants. Legal, illegal - they're not to be despised.

For years, President Obama has chastised Republicans, used immigrants as props for political purposes, and time and again deflected responsibility from his own party's failure to act on immigration reform.

Everyone that've been here, working, living as Americans - just give them a green card.

We need to have comprehensive immigration reform and that means there should be a path for citizenship. And certainly I support the DREAM Act to help all of these young people who were brought here.

We're a nation of immigrants.

The left think that America is a special place, but not because of anything the people here did to make it special. It just happens to be. And the people who were here are here simply by winning life's lottery. It's all fate; it's all luck. And if anybody else in the world wants to come to this one special place, then nobody has the right to tell them they can't because we are all immigrants.

I'm marching for women; I'm marching for the LGBT community. I'm marching for immigrants. I happen to fall into all three categories, so I'm marching for myself at the end of the day and for my family and my friends. And for whoever else deserves it.

Cubans who arrive and can prove that they are refugees who are truly fleeing political persecution will continue to qualify as refugees. The only thing that I've asked for is to do away with automatic benefits granted to someone, basically, Cubans who come from Cuba, if it cannot be verified that they are refugees fleeing political persecution, so they will be treated the same way as any other immigrant who arrives in the United States, which is that legal immigrants in the United States don't have the right to any federal benefits for five years.

Going back to the discussion we were having about immigration reform, some of the most challenging discussions I've had are with activists who essentially would argue that any immigrant from Central America, let's say, who gets here to this country should be allowed to stay because their country is dangerous, their country is poor, and the opportunities for that mom and that kid are much greater here, and why would you send them back?

It is a lie that to talk to Hispanics you have to talk about amnesty. Let me tell you, the only Hispanics that are in favor of amnesty are the illegals.