Pathway to Citizenship Quotes

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.

I think we gotta have tough conditions. Tell people to come out of the shadows. If they’ve committed a crime deport them no questions asked. They’re gone. If they if they’ve been working and are law abiding, we should say, ‘Here are the conditions for you staying: you have to pay a stiff fine because you came here illegally, you have to pay back taxes, and you have to try to learn English, and you have to wait in line.’

For one, we very much need in any immigration bill - we need protection for people who are in this country and who have not become citizens, for example, that they are protected and legitimized and given permanent residency here. And we want to see some things of that kind added to the immigration bill.

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.

We have to deal with the 11 million individuals who are here illegally. The bill that Senator [Marco] Rubio put forward, I think is a great place to start.

The good news is that we really do think that ... on the immigration issue, that we will, before summer, have comprehensive immigration reform.

Remember the Dreamers whose patriotism was praised when the Democratic House passed, and the Senate filibustered - the DREAM Act in 2010? Washington promised a path to citizenship, not just a roadblock to deportation.

...you're never going to have a legal immigration system that works if you grant amnesty.

I do not believe that the people of the United States are going to take people who have been here a quarter century, who have children and grandchildren, who are members of the community, who may have done something 25 years ago, separate them from their families, and expel them.

I still believe the momentum is there to accomplish comprehensive immigration reform, and I think there is a bipartisan coalition that would pass right now, a pathway to citizenship if Speaker Boehner lets it come to the floor.

There should be a path to earned legal status for those that are here. Not - not amnesty - earned legal status, which means you pay a fine and do many things over an extended period of time.

I don't want there to be millions of people that are permanently barred from every becoming Americans.

A good place to start is with the kids ... One of the great founding principles of our country was that children would not be punished for the mistakes of their parents. It is time to provide an opportunity for legal residence and citizenship for those who were brought to this country as children and who know no other home.

People have a pathway to citizenship right now: It's to abide by the immigration laws, and if they have a family relationship, if they have a job skill that allows them to do that, they can obtain citizenship.

Anybody that brings up amnesty in this Congress, we need to just take the scarlet 'A' for amnesty and pin it on them.

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.

Donald Trump's against amnesty and I'm against amnesty, not that anybody should care what a consultant thinks.

...we will not grant amnesty to illegal aliens in this Congress or, hopefully ever again. We did that once. Everybody said it was a one time deal. We were to never do it again. The problem with doing it was we reward people who violated the law. We reward people who came into the country illegally.

I am my own version of the DREAM Act.

Any new pathway to citizenship is completely off the table ... [Illegal immigrants should be able to get citizenship] the same way as any other immigrant has to do it ... You have to apply for legal permanent residence, be it family-based or employment-based. You shouldn't be treated worse than the people doing it the right way, but I think it would be unconscionable for us to treat them better than the people who are doing it the right way.

Like other undocumented people in this country, I want a green card, and I want a driver's license, and I want a passport. What, to me, is the immigration bill? It's a green card, a driver's license, and a passport. That's what it's about to me, tangibly. That I could see my mom. That I could drive. Is there anything more American than driving? That I could get a green card and be able to - right now, I'm just like freelancing and working as an independent contractor. It's hilarious. I'm unhirable.

I try and make it to the word exactly what I said four years ago and what I said was that those who've come here illegally should not be given a special pathway, a favored pathway to become permanent residents merely by virtue of having come here illegally. That they should be in line with everybody - they should be given the opportunity to get in line with everybody else but they go to the back of the line.

I will argue until my last breath for a pathway to citizenship that is quick and efficient because I want to end this chapter. I want to end it...But let me say, conversely, I am as committed as any Republican to ending illegal immigration as we know it...They want to end it. So do I.

We can't go on forever with 11 million people living in this country in the shadows in an illegal status. We cannot forever have children who were born here - who were brought here by their parents when they were small children to live in the shadows, as well... What's changed, honestly, is that there is a new appreciation on both sides of the aisle, maybe more importantly on the Republican side, that we need to enact a comprehensive immigration reform bill.

We [Americans] really need a system that comprehensively looks at the fact that we need these workers in the United States, we need to be able to provide a pathway to citizenship. We need to be able to allow them to be here legally and to do the work that they are doing and that we need.