Undocumented Status 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.

One of the things I had to really wrap my head around is I have no control over what people call me: advocate, activist, gay, Filipino, undocumented person, gay person with an Asian face and Latino name.

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

Our friends, neighbors, and their families have been forced to live in the shadows out of fear of being torn from their families and deported from what is, for many of them, the only country they have ever known.

[Donald] Trump has been saying that on, day one, the violent undocumented immigrants will be - will leave the country. But what about the rest? What happens to the other 11 or so million, however many there are?

You try turning up in America without documents, without a visa, without a passport; you'll be treated as very, very much illegal.

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.

I think we should be pushing for amnesty and a path to citizenship for every undocumented person residing in the United States who has not committed a violent crime, with a special emphasis on keeping families together.

My parents were desperately trying to become documented citizens of this country and tried very hard to get there, but to no avail.

Throughout my childhood, I watched my parents try to become legal but to no avail. They lost their money to people they believed to be attorneys but who ultimately never helped. That meant my childhood was haunted by the fear that they would be deported.

When I come to the United States, I came here illegally. I didn't know I was going to be a fighter. I just thought I was going to work landscaping for, I don't know, three, four years, then go back to Brazil and live my life.

I was blessed to be able to be born here. My dad crossed. My dad illegally went through the border and was living under a bridge; he was homeless. People are making fun of him, beating him up. All kinds of things. After he kind of figured out the situation, he brought my mom over.

What person here illegally (and in his right mind), will go to the government, announce being here illegally (e.g. plead guilty), provide all sorts of information as to where that person lives etc. to get a work permit only to be a target for deportation in two years?

The federal government is responsible for addressing how to address the status of the estimated 9 to 15 million people who are in the country illegally, but local and state law enforcement can be helpful partners in that regard.

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.

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.

Illegal is not a race, it is a crime.

I think any immigrant who comes to this country also knows somebody who is undocumented.

Ted [Cruz], you support legalizing people who are in this country illegally.

My grandfather was an undocumented immigrant. My great-grandmother, my bisabuela, carried him over the border in her arms.

I'm an illegal alien and have been for many years. If you rub my skin, I go green.

You know, the eleven million people living in the shadows, I believe, they're already American citizens... These people are just waiting, waiting for a chance to contribute fully. And by that standard alone eleven million undocumented aliens are already Americans in my view.

For the undocumented immigrants, the big priority is just to get out from the shadows, be able to get a driver's license, buy an airplane ticket and stop worrying about sudden deportation. But for the country as a whole, it's crucial that everybody have a citizen's stake in the nation's welfare.

I remember the first article I ever wrote, and I saw my name in the paper, and I already knew I was undocumented, and I was thinking: 'How can they now say I don't exist?'

I began teaching in New York because I needed to stay in the United States and didn't have my immigration papers in order, so working for a university was a way of resolving the issue.