I am a naturalized U.S. citizen, which means that, unlike native-born citizens, I had to prove to the U.S. government that I merited citizenship.
My own wife is from the Philippines and came here legally to this country, and there are a lot of people that want to be part of this nation, and I want them to be part of this nation.
When I was about 14, my family emigrated from England to Australia, and we decided to stop in Bali on the way through.
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.
It is not an exaggeration to say that under Obama, the naturalization process - becoming a citizen - no longer requires becoming an American. The real tragedy and the real crime of the Obama plan for accelerated naturalization of millions flows from the redefinition of citizenship as a triumph of multiculturalism.
Washington, D.C. is what is broken, not the immigration policies. We have good laws. We have people suffer every day because of government's failure to enforce the law and be respectful to the process we have. We have a pathway to citizenship already in place.
My first 'Daily Show' piece was pretending I had this terrible immigrant journey, so I went to talk to an immigration lawyer who would help out people, and I ran into him in Penn Station about three months after I'd gotten the green card. I said, 'I got my green card yesterday.' And he hugged me because he understood that level of relief.
Ending illegal immigration only strengthens legal immigration.
I think I'll move to Australia.
Step one of the initial process of getting a non-immigrant visa is tough, renewing it is tough, and then transferring from the status of non-immigrant to immigrant or green card is tough. The only process which is easy is the last part of transferring from green card to citizenship, but getting there is quite a journey.
Whether we start with a provisional status and legal permanent residence... or we set up some other way to assimilate legally, you can't ever put in something that says, 'You can never become a citizen.' That's un-American.
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.
Comprehensive immigration reform should be debated and passed by Congress.
In the midst of applying for American citizenship, of finally attempting to get my presidents in a row, I felt it incumbent upon myself to explore the national psyche in every way.
Cubans have no bar to being legalized once they are in America. All other Hispanics - with the exception of Puerto Ricans - have to go through a broken, dysfunctional process. One group is American from day one. And all the rest are trying to be.
My parents were desperately trying to become documented citizens of this country and tried very hard to get there, but to no avail.
I don't want there to be millions of people that are permanently barred from every becoming Americans.
I volunteered at Ayuda, in the office, on a regular basis, and I did everything from fingerprinting and interviewing persons of Hispanic origin who entered the country without inspection and who were seeking work-authorization permits.
I spend more time in New York than the Dominican. I play here, I live here, so why not become a citizen?
Sometimes, of course, there's no quick way to make it through immigration: Different airports have gluts of incoming flights at different times of day, and short of rearranging your flight schedule to ensure you'll land at a low-traffic hour, there's nothing you can do.
With these 11 million people here illegally, let's have them registered, know who they are, those that are her paying taxes and not taking government benefits should begin a process towards application for citizenship.
America's strength in the past has been our ability to bring family members to join other family members in the United States and to look at skills but not have it be the only determination of how you get here.
I am overwhelmed and I am glad I can make my parents proud by becoming a Canadian citizen. It has been a long journey becoming a Canadian citizen.
I think people have good ideas on this. Clearly, we need to secure the border. Coming here legally needs to be a lot easier than coming here illegally.
If I ever had to emigrate, I would probably go to America.
