Immigration Incentives Quotes

In the U.S., we are doing ourselves tremendous damage by having such bad immigration policies. We have built the best educational institutions on the planet, and we educate the brightest minds from all countries, and then we kick them out when they want to stay here. I think well-planned and well-executed immigration reforms, especially for students, would be one of the biggest drivers of entrepreneurship and innovation—something as simple as allowing the bright minds we’ve educated to stay and contribute to the American economy.

All Germans and Swiss emigrating to the colonies will be awarded transportation subsidies and land, provided they are not Catholic.

Immigration has almost ceased, and the resent unsettled condition of Europe … should invite on our part the adoption of the most liberal policy, which will induce the immigrant to seek a home here … We should do all in our power to invite immigration and capital to our unoccupied public lands.

There are some benefits [that illegal aliens] clearly ought not have...[including] health benefits and welfare benefits and others that serve as a magnet attracting people here from other countries.

When we have had in the past programs that have said that the people who come here illegally are going to get to stay illegally for the rest of their life, that's going to only encourage more people to come here illegally.

If the U.S. doubled its total immigration and prioritized bringing in new workers, it could add more than half a percentage point a year to expected GDP growth.

Over a period of time, they [undocumented workers] can have a legalized status that allows them to live a life of dignity but not necessarily a path to citizenship, so as to not create incentives for future people that aspire to come to our country to do so illegally when they could come legally.

A Dominican kitchen worker in New York City can make more money than a Dominican doctor working in the Dominican Republic. Why should anyone want to stay?

But design has never been a Europe-only project. The best of design has global influences. And we've got to design the future immigration system to make sure that we continue to attract the brightest and best.

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.

If you have an area where high-income receivers concentrate, you have a higher fiscal capacity. That fiscal capacity is a valuable resource and will create rent-seeking. People will trying to get that resource one way or the other, including immigration. It is very much like the medieval peasants putting their sheep on the commons pasture. It is better than the open range, and if you let them have open access they will, in fact, put too many sheep on the pasture and waste the value that the pasture has.