Quotes about Immigration

I am here, a citizen of this country, and I'm saying, 'Hey, the system failed me. I am a good citizen. I contribute to this country, and here I am sharing my story. What are you going to do now?'

Some Americans need hyphens in their names, because only part of them has come over; but when the whole man has come over, heart and thought and all, the hyphen drops of its own weight out of his name.

No human being is illegal.

I don't know a country in the world that doesn't have borders and doesn't want to know who is coming into their country.

Neighbors broke the news that my parents had been taken away by immigration officers, and just like that, my stable family life was over.

America is a nation of immigrants. And so the question is, how do we make legal immigration faster, less bureaucratic, cut the red tape?

We will reform legal immigration to serve the best interests of America and its workers, the forgotten people. Workers. We're going to take care of our workers.

We are a people unafraid to welcome 'your tired, your poor, your huddled masses,' because we measure others by the quality of their hopes for the future, not by the circumstances of their birth.

My father was desperately trying to be a legal contributor to this society.

I don't want to talk politics, but what I do say is I believe in rules and laws, and if you come to this country, you've got to abide by the rules here.

While awaiting deportation proceedings, my parents remained in detention near Boston, so I could visit them. They would have liked to fight deportation, but without a lawyer and an immigration system that rarely gives judges the discretion to allow families to stay together, they never had a chance.

Unlike Europeans who immigrated to this land to escape from tyranny, Africans came in chains to serve a nation of tyrants.