Quotes & Sayings About Illegal Immigration

We all learned in kindergarten that the beginning is a very good place to start. As we have this debate on illegal immigration and illegal entry into this country, let's begin at the very beginning by sealing the borders to this great Nation. — Marsha Blackburn

We know that a ready amnesty tends to be an invitation to more illegal entries. — Jeff Sessions

We must face the fact that unilateral action on the part of the United States will never be enough to stop illegal immigration. Immigrants come here illegally from source countries where conditions prevail that encourage or even compel them to leave. Attacking the causes of illegal migration is essential and will require international cooperation. — Barbara Jordan

You are never going to have, in a country as rich as ours [the USA], that borders a country as poor as Mexico, an end to immigration. You just won't. The question is, if you make it humane and if you make it regulated. It's much better for an American worker to compete against a regulated immigrant inside labor standards, than it is to ever to compete against an illegal immigrant. — Ezra Klein

We feel a pathway to citizenship would reward illegal activity, ... Amnesty encourages further illegal immigration. — Elaine Chao

Most illegal immigrants are not by nature lawbreakers. Most are looking for the chance to live in dignity. Nevertheless we must continue to discourage illegal immigration for it undermines control of our borders ... and even more punishes hard-working people who play by the rules and who wait for their turn to come to the United States. Therefore we must enforce our laws, but we will do so with justice and fairness. — William J. Clinton

Illegal immigration continues to be a major problem in the United States. We have people waiting to come here legally. And we should not be rewarding people who have come here illegally. — John Barrasso

The Republican Party looks at massive immigration, legal and illegal, as a source of cheap labor, satisfying a very important constituency. — Tom Tancredo

You reduce illegal immigration by making it harder to get jobs here, or easier to get jobs south of the border. This idea that we can't pass an immigration law until we hit some imaginary security target is just a way to derail reform. — Gail Collins

I said, the pope is saying bad things about me the day before the election? And then I gathered myself, and I realized that it had to do with illegal immigration, that he was opposed to my measures, which is basically creating a border. — Donald Trump

If you want to stop illegal immigration, you have to make it so that - so that the people that hire the illegal immigrants will not be in a position to hire them. — Jesse Ventura

It is our hope that in future discussions with the Mexican government, you will encourage Mexico to do its part to address illegal immigration rather than encourage their citizens to illegally enter the U.S. — Elton Gallegly

Obama wants to raise the issue of immigration reform so that he can demonize Republicans as anti-Hispanic. That's why Obama ignores the broad support for an immigration plan that would provide border security once and for all and then deal with the illegal immigrants who live here. — Ben Shapiro

It's absolutely the wrong signal, I think, to those who have entered this country legally or those who may be considering illegal immigration for a lot of benefits to be provided ... Emergency medical needs should be met, but otherwise I think send the wrong signal to those who have come into the country legally and those who may be considering illegal immigration. So as you know, I've called for an increase in the border patrol agents. I've looked at that from both the standpoints of drugs and to prevent illegal immigration, but I think that's where the focus should be. — Elizabeth Dole

Protecting national security amounts to looking for needles in a haystack. The work becomes more difficult if the haystack is larger. Restricting immigration generally, and illegal immigration in particular, limits growth in the haystack, and supports protection of national security. — Jan C. Ting

I think we need a real plan, which is why I have offered a much more specific approach to securing the border, fixing the legal immigration system and addressing illegal immigration. — Carly Fiorina

One of the critical issues that we have to confront is illegal immigration, because this is a multi-headed Hydra that affects our economy, our health care, our health care, our education systems, our national security, and also our local criminality. — Allen West

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. — Luis Gutierrez

I will continue to enforce all the laws, including illegal immigration. Nothing changes. — Joe Arpaio

There's got to be a point where we fix the system so that legal immigration is easier than illegal immigration and show respect for people, a kid who might have been here for 10 years, that might be a valedictorian of their high school to say, no, no, no you're not allowed to go to college. I just think there's a point past which we are over the line. — Jeb Bush

We have no borders. Our vets are being treated horribly. Illegal immigration is beyond belief. — Donald Trump

Now, don't get me wrong, I think border security is important. And I have no doubt that the Republican plan for turning our southern border into The Hunger Games will put a stop to the #1 threat facing America today - illegal cleaning ladies. — Bill Maher

He had 'deep concerns' with the pathway to citizenship for the nation's 11 million illegal immigrants under consideration by the group, calling it 'profoundly unfair' to legal immigrants. — Ted Cruz

I'm sometimes asked why it is that for 30 years we seem to have trouble in the United States enforcing the rules against illegal immigration, and I'll tell you what the answer is. The answer is that when the television cameras turn off and the spotlight moves to something else, there are a host of interest groups and advocacy groups who work very, very hard to make it difficult to enforce these rules. I'm not commenting adversely on their motivation, but I can tell you the effect of all of this is to wear down the ability of an agency to enforce the law ... — Michael Chertoff

We must say no to illegal immigration so we can continue to say yes to legal immigration. — William J. Clinton

I want people to know that I am tough on illegal immigration and we are working to provide needed border security. — David Dreier

Everybody will say that they're not opposed to immigration; they're opposed to illegal immigration. That's what I'm saying. — Sam Brownback

I think the key to getting rid of illegal immigration, no matter where its coming from, is that you need to have a good legal apparatus for immigration. — Rand Paul

ACORN, you may recall, is the left-wing activist group with longtime ties to community organizer-turned-President Barack Obama. The nonprofit, which now takes in 40 percent of its revenues from American taxpayers after four decades on the public teat, has a history of engaging in voter fraud, corporate shakedowns, partisan bullying and pro-illegal immigration lobbying. The Democrats' stimulus proposals could make the group - and its lesser known but even more radical ideological allies - eligible for upward of $5 billion in new public cash. — Michelle Malkin

The Democratic Party looks at massive immigration, legal and illegal, as a source of voters. — Tom Tancredo

For example, you can go on all the pro-life chat rooms and say you're an outraged right-wing voter and that you know that George Bush drove an ex-girlfriend to an abortion clinic and paid for her to get an abortion.Then you go to an anti-immigration website chat room and ask, What's all this about George Bush proposing amnesty for illegal aliens? — Moby

That may not be a majority position in my party, but that's down the road. You can't even begin that process until you prove to people - not just pass a law that says you're gonna bring illegal immigration under control. You're gonna have to do it and prove to people that it's working. — Marco Rubio

One thing is very clear: Illegal immigrants are not entitled to benefits. — Barbara Jordan

We are trying to identify employers that might be [hiring illegal aliens] and to take effective action against them. We're trying to make sure that employers that want to cooperate have a system whereby they can verify the employment status of a person that they are seeking to hire. It is part of a comprehensive initiative in which we look both at the border, at the workplace, at criminal aliens, in an attempt to have a comprehensive effort aimed at stopping illegal immigration while at the same time promoting legal immigration according to principles of due process. — Janet Reno

The only people benefiting from the status quo in immigration in the USA are the people trafficking human beings across the border, and the people who are hiring illegal labor for cheap purposes. — Marco Rubio

Stopping illegal immigration would mean that wages would have to rise to a level where Americans would want the jobs currently taken by illegal aliens. — Thomas Sowell

Everywhere I travel throughout Eastern Washington, I hear from people demanding we do a better job of controlling our borders and reducing illegal immigration. — Cathy McMorris Rodgers

There is no quick fix for illegal immigration. But only when we achieve better control of our borders and better respect for our immigration laws can we give meaning to the discussion we need to have over reforming the numbers, categories, and procedures for legal immigration into the United States. — Jan C. Ting

Ending illegal immigration only strengthens legal immigration. — Mitt Romney

Donald Trump is a world-class con artist. He conned all these people that signed up for Trump University. Now he's trying to do the same thing to Republican voters. He's trying to convince them that somehow he's the guy that is going to stand up to illegal immigration, but he hires illegal immigrants, that he's fighting for American workers, but he's hiring foreign workers for his hotels, that he's going to bring back jobs from China and from Mexico, but, in fact, he's creating jobs in China and Mexico, because that's where all of his suits and ties that he sells are made. — Marco Rubio

The issues surrounding illegal immigration are wide-ranging and complex, but there is no question about the need to secure our borders. — Roger Wicker

I asked a man who took a death boat to Europe across the treachelous waters of the Mediterranean from Libya
"Why are you taking this death boat".
"I am already dead." He said. This is my coffin. If I succeed to get to the other side, I get a new life. If I fail, I loose nothing. I remain what I am now: Dead. — Bangambiki Habyarimana

The difference between past and present immigration experience is the existence of a defiant anti-assimilationist lobby that encourages legal and illegal aliens to resist adapting to the American way of life. — Michelle Malkin

What about the millions of poor in this country who desperately need assistance and services to help bring them out of poverty? Shall they go to the back of the line? and shall those who have made a dramatic illegal entry, who would normally not be entitled to government assistance, or even entry itself, be put at the front? — Ed Koch

[Illegal immigration] costs the taxpayers of the United States a lot of money. And it's unfair to Americans who are working every day to pay their own bills. It's also unfair to a lot of people who have waited in line for years and years in other countries to be legal immigrants. — William J. Clinton

After a migratory crisis on the border with minors coming over that you're seeing start up again now, after all these executive orders the President has issued. More than ever we need to prove to people that illegal immigration is under control. — Marco Rubio

One of the defining characteristics or difference between today's illegal immigration and the immigration of old is the immigrants of the late 1800s through the early 1920s came here desiring to become Americans. They wanted to become part of what was a unique and distinct American culture. They were all coming from tyranny of one kind or another. — Rush Limbaugh

Don't let any of 'em in the room 'til my guy gets what he needs. We'll be outta here before they get their gloves on.
Tea Party Teddy's Legacy — Dianne Harman

I think what's important for us to understand and there is a way forward on this issue that we an bring our country together on. And while I'm president I will do it. And it will begin by bringing illegal immigration under control and proving to the American people. — Marco Rubio

Illegal immigration is crisis for our country. It is an open door for drugs, criminals, and potential terrorists to enter our country. It is straining our economy, adding costs to our judicial, healthcare, and education systems. — Timothy Murphy

My policy will be to detain and deport every illegal alien who is apprehended in this country. And we'll do it with an expedited hearing process so that millions of illegal aliens are not released into the general population with some hearing date down the road. — Rick Perry

Have to keep those lawns as green as possible, even when there was a drought, you know. Or my smile and nod when Mrs. Snodgrass went on and on about a racy book that everyone was talking about but no one would admit to reading, when in fact I know every woman there had read it. I even smiled and nodded when Mr. Peterson lectured us about illegal immigration, when I knew for a fact that his nanny was undocumented. — Alice Clayton

We have the most generous immigration policy, but what is a concern is when illegal immigrants come and undermine a variety of the systems that work in order to make our society function. — Madeleine Albright

Stop illegal immigration. Stop these trade deals that are taking jobs from Americans. Build an economy that works for the people at the bottom, not just the ones at the top. — Mike Huckabee

Our immigration policy is focussed in four areas: First, strengthening border control; second, protecting American jobs by enforcing laws against illegal immigrants at the workplace; third, deporting criminal and deportable aliens; fourth, giving assistance to states who need it, and denying illegal aliens benefits for public services or welfare. — William J. Clinton

No one believed [the 1986 amnesty for illegal aliens] was tough enough on illegal immigration, and it didn't give enough flexibility on future legal immigration. — Charles Schumer

Well, my constituents are happy that the Republican Party has finally gotten off its duff, seeing that we do control the House and the Senate and the presidency, and taken up the issue of illegal immigration. — Dana Rohrabacher

Again, this week as I walked on Broadway, in front of giant photographs of voluptuous supermodels at a Victoria Secret mega-store, who was rebuilding the sidewalks? With sweaty headbands, ripped-up jeans, and dust on their brown faces? Their muscled hands quivered as they worked the jack-hammers and lugged the concrete chunks into dump trucks. Two men from Guanajuato. Undocumented workers. They both shook my hand vigorously, as if they were relieved I wasn't an INS officer.
I imagined how much money Victoria Secret was making off these poor bastards. I wondered why passersby didn't see what was in front of their faces. We use these workers. We profit from them. In the shadows, they work to the bone, for pennies. And it's so easy to blame them for everything and nothing simply because they are powerless, and dark-skinned,and speak with funny accents. Illegal is illegal. It is a phrase, shallow and cruel, that should prompt any decent American to burn with anger. — Sergio Troncoso

Spelling is difficult because there are too many rules. Silent letters only exist to make it harder for illegal immigrants to learn English. — Daniel Tosh

These guidelines contemplate a policy that will grant special benefits to illegal immigrants based on their unlawful presence in the country. — Mike Lee

What they are doing is disarming in the battle to stop illegal drugs and illegal aliens. — Lamar S. Smith

More than 95 percent of both legal and illegal immigration into the United States is non-white. Because of the way immigration law is structured, the highest-skilled nations on earth - those of Europe - are allowed only a tiny percentage of immigrants, while the third world nations such as Mexico are dumping their chaff onto American shores at the highest rate in history. — David Duke

There is overwhelming bipartisan support outside of Washington that we need to finally secure our borders, enforce our laws, and stop the problem of illegal immigration. — Ted Cruz

Alexa and the other guests, and perhaps even Georgina, all understood the fleeing from war, from the kind of poverty that crushed human souls, but they would not understand the need to escape from the oppressive lethargy of choicelessness. They would not understand why people like him who were raised well fed and watered but mired in dissatisfaction, conditioned from birth to look towards somewhere else, eternally convinced that real lives happened in that somewhere else, were now resolved to do dangerous things, illegal things, so as to leave, none of them starving, or raped, or from burned villages, but merely hungry for for choice and certainty. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Based on my experience as a prosecutor in Miami, illegal immigration is one of the most critical issues facing this country. As a prosecutor, I felt the burden of it. I think what's important ... is for the state and the federal government and for local governments to work together to do everything possible to control illegal immigration in a comprehensive way. — Janet Reno

The impulse to make ourselves safer by making ourselves less free is an old one ... When we are badly frightened, we think we can make ourselves safer by sacrificing some of our liberties. We did it during the McCarthy era out of fear of communism. Less liberty is regularly proposed as a solution to crime, to pornography, to illegal immigration, to abortion, to all kinds of threats. — Molly Ivins

We should strengthen our immigration laws to prevent the importation of foreign wages and working conditions. We should make it illegal for employers to lay off Americans and then fill their jobs by bringing in workers from overseas. Any U.S. employer who wishes to hire from abroad - even for temporary jobs - should have to recruit U.S. workers first. And we should end the unskilled immigration that competes with young Americans just entering the job market. — Edward Kennedy

If America is the land of opportunity, a country where perseverance and hard work is rewarded by recognition, then an illegal harbors the opposite ambitions. His greatest reward us anonymity, invisibility. Aided and abetted by market forces and the laws of supply and demand, he hones his skill to stand up but make sure he's never counted. — Bella Pollen

Somebody said, well, it wouldn't have been any different. Well, it would have been. I am extremely, extremely tough on illegal immigration. I'm extremely tough on people coming into this country. I believe that if I were running things, I doubt those families would have - I doubt that those people would have been in the country. So there's a good chance that those people would not have been in our country. — Donald Trump

The economic impact of illegal immigration on taxpayers is catastrophic. — Ric Keller

I support local solutions to illegal immigration as protected by the 10th amendment. I support making English the official language of all documents and contracts.. — Rand Paul

I want to go to Mexico. I've been stonewalled, so far, by federal officials. I want to go to Mexico, and I want to meet with the top Mexican officials. I want to tell them my past experience and what I can do here as Sheriff to help them get better intelligence and communications on the drug thing, not the illegal immigration thing. — Joe Arpaio

I am, you know, adamantly against illegal immigration. — Hillary Clinton

I have fought on the front lines to prevent illegal immigration. I know Donald Trump will stand with me and countless Americans to secure our border. — Joe Arpaio

I am long term optimistic and short term pessimistic on immigration. Long term, I'm optimistic because there's a lotta bipartisan agreement outside of Washington on immigration. There's overwhelming bipartisan agreement, number one, that we need to secure the borders. That we need to finally do something to stop illegal immigration. — Ted Cruz

The Commission agrees that the federal government should help alleviate these costs. The best way to do so is to reduce illegal immigration ... We recommend immediate reimbursement of criminal justice costs, because these conditions can now be met, but we urge further study of the costs of health care and education before impact aid is provided. — Barbara Jordan

We must return immigration to a logical, orderly process where people fill out their applications and wait for approval. We must make sure illegal immigrants stop storming our borders. We must establiesh the correct criteria, such as our need for certain job skills or education, for granting the right to immigrate into the United States. — Ross Perot

In the budget I will present to you, we will try to do more to speed the deportation of illegal aliens who are arrested for crimes, to better identify illegal aliens in the workplace as recommended by the commission headed by former congresswoman Barbara Jordan. We are a nation of immigrants, but we are also a nation of laws. It is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws we have seen in recent years, and we must do more to stop it. — William J. Clinton

Illegal immigrants make a rational choice when they decide to violate our immigration laws. They weigh the costs, including the risks of getting caught, against the benefits of a better life. — Jan C. Ting

Enforcement alone does not work. Unless we address the gap between our immigration laws and reality, illegal immigration will not stop and the situation on the border will continue to be chaotic. — Harry Reid

The current practice of extending U.S. citizenship to hundreds of thousands of 'anchor babies' must end because it creates a magnet for illegal immigration into our country. Now is the time to ensure that the laws in this country do not encourage law-breaking. — Steve King

As the American public continues to focus more intensely on illegal immigration and securing the nation's borders, the number of members of the House Immigration Reform Caucus continues to grow. — Virgil Goode

I've always said that the 1986 [Immigration Reform and Control] Act had a fourth leg [in addition to law enforcement, increased immigration and amnesty] to its stool which was wishful thinking. And that pattern of a four-legged stool was copied in the failed attempts to enact a second and bigger general amnesty for illegal aliens in 2006, 2007, and in the current year 2013. — Jan C. Ting

The criminal justice system should have the authority to determine the immigration status of all criminals, regardless of race or ethnicity, and report illegal immigrants who commit crimes to federal authorities. — Susana Martinez

If the penalty for hiring illegals is just a fine, it becomes a business decision. But if the penalty is jail time, illegal immigration will come to a screeching halt. — Jose Ferreira

On immigration policy, I believe we ought to call an immediate halt, stop illegal immigration and reduce legal immigration back to about 250,000 to 300,000, to more easily assimilate the Americans who've come here in the last 30 years. — Pat Buchanan

However, in recent years our nation has seen a sizable influx of illegal immigration that at best highlights some alarming inadequacies and at worst indicates a broken system. — Spencer Bachus

Notably, during this era, the notion of illegal immigration did not conjure the same political and legal consequences that it would after 1965 [...] The southern border of the United States was not militarized or guarded in the manner it would become in the late twentieth century, and seasonal, uncapped migration from Mexico was an accepted and expected labor reality. — Pratheepan Gulasekaram

At least 99.92% of illegal immigrants and visa overstays without known crimes on their records did not face removal. — Jeff Sessions

Unless legal and illegal immigration is halted and reversed, European First World nations across all of Europe from Spain to Russia, North America, Australia and New Zealand - will be destroyed and have their very culture and civilisation changed to that of the Third World. Immigration is now the single most important issue facing all First World nations, and will determine whether Western Civilisation continues to exist or not. — Arthur Kemp

Anyone who sincerely wanted to use policy to reduce illegal immigration should start by crafting legislation based on changing actual behavior. — Jose Ferreira

Granted, we need to have a sound immigration policy that allows people into our country who are going to produce more than they are going to consume, but the bottom line is illegal aliens consume far more of our tax resources than they generate. — Mo Brooks

Of 472 civilian occupations defined by the Department of Commerce, only six are majority immigrant (legal and illegal). These six occupations account for 1 percent of the total U.S. workforce. Many jobs often thought to be overwhelmingly done by immigrants are in fact majority native-born: 51 percent of maids are U.S.-born, as are 63 percent of butchers and meat processors, and 73 percent of janitors. — Mark Krikorian

I challenge the Republican nominees and all Republicans to not just be the anti-illegal immigration party. That's not who we are and that's not who we should be we should be the pro-legal immigration party. — Marco Rubio

Immigration law's already settled. That's why we have people known as illegal immigrants, because the law is very clear. They're not being called illegal immigrants because people are biased and prejudiced. — Rush Limbaugh

Therefore, if we are a Nation of laws and a Nation of immigrants, immigration should occur within a legal framework, not through the machinations of illegal schemes and scams that threaten our national security. — J. D. Hayworth

The Center for Immigration Studies found that illegal immigrants cost the United States taxpayer about $10.4 billion a year. A large part of that expense stems from the babies born each year to illegal immigrants. — Nathan Deal

Arizona did not make illegal, illegal. It is a crime to enter or remain in the U.S. in violation of federal law. States have had inherent authority to enforce immigration laws when the federal government has failed or refused to do so. — Russell Pearce

We must fix our broken immigration system. That means stopping illegal immigration. And it means welcoming properly vetted legal immigrants, regardless of their race or religion. Just like we have for centuries. — Nikki Haley

House Republicans want to pass a strong border security, illegal immigration bill. We want a bill. There is no ifs, ands or buts about it. — John Boehner