Immigration And Citizenship Quotes & Sayings

There will never be a bill without a pathway to citizenship signed by the president ... And in turn there will never be a pathway to citizenship without a new immigration system replacing the current one. — Lindsey Graham

The laws should be rigidly enforced which prohibit the immigration of a servile class to compete with American labor, with no intention of acquiring citizenship, and bringing with them and retaining habits and customs repugnant to our civilization. — Grover Cleveland

Citizens Debt has been helping people with reliable debt advice and other services in solving their debt problems. — Citizenship And Immigration Services

Though Article II requires "natural born" citizenship, the Constitution does not explain what the phrase means. There was no constitutional definition of American citizenship until 1868, when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted. Nor was there any existing body of American immigration law to explain it. — Garrett Epps

I don't support an amnesty.(Cornyn) demands an ongoing focus on security and workplace enforcement before considering steps to grant legal status, let alone citizenship. — John Cornyn

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

For the first time since 2007 there is political momentum behind fixing the immigration system. President Obama in his State of the Union speech reached out to the right-wing by saying illegal immigrants seeking citizenship will have to pay taxes, learn English and get in line behind people who are trying to enter the United States legally. — Juan Williams

Again, something that's very strange and odd, you will find sometimes that immigrants that have been here for many years and already have their citizenship might be the ones against additional immigration. We've seen that also. — Philippe Falardeau

The 1790 Naturalization law determined that "free white persons" could naturalize after two years of residency, and established that the children of citizens would also be citizens. Soon after, in 1795, Congress extended the residency period to five years, and in 1798 extended the residency requirement even further, to fourteen years. — Pratheepan Gulasekaram

After using a paint chart from a local DIY superstore to identify the skin tone of his penis as midnight chocolate, Miriam stayed down on one knee and offered him the citizenship he had always wanted and the middle-aged white woman he would grudgingly accept. — David F. Porteous

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 want good people to come here from all over the world, but I want them to do so legally. We can expedite the process, we can reward achievement and excellemce, but we have to respect the legal process. And those people who take advantage of the system and come here illegally should never enjoy the benefits of being a resident
or citizen
of this nation. So I am against any path to citizenship for undocumented workers or anyone else who is in this country illegaly. They should
and need to
go home and get in line. — Donald J. Trump

The new culture war is about national identity rather than religion and 'transcendent authority.' It focuses on which groups the United States will formally admit to residence and citizenship. It asks the same question as the old culture war: 'Who are we?' But the earlier query was primarily about how we define ourselves morally. The new question is about how we define ourselves ethnically, racially and linguistically. It is, in truth, one of the oldest questions in our history, going back to our earliest immigration battles of the 1840s and 1850s. — E. J. Dionne

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

Our immigration system is a broken system that needs to be fixed. We need reform that provides hardworking people of good character with a real path towards citizenship. — Joe Baca

Ours is an open and accepting society, and has historically provided an avenue for lawful immigration to all those willing to accept the responsibilities of citizenship. — Spencer Bachus

I still passionately support comprehensive immigration reform legislation with a path to full and equal citizenship. — Hillary Clinton

The German stamp on Wisconsin endures in the state's commitment to efficient agriculture, hard work, education, culture, and to good citizenship and political freedom - all of which were an integral part of the German immigrant's language. — Richard H. Zeitlin

The U.S. immigration system is the most generous in the world, providing each year more green cards for legal permanent residence with a clear path to full citizenship than all the rest of the nations of the world combined. — Jan C. Ting

We watched the U.S. citizenship immigration services web site in March. They had six million, two hundred thousand hits, and two million people downloaded applications for citizenship. So what we're doing is attempting to help people in that process. — Luis Gutierrez

If those who wrote and ratified the 14th Amendment had imagined laws restricting immigration - and had anticipated huge waves of illegal immigration - is it reasonable to presume they would have wanted to provide the reward of citizenship to the children of the violators of those laws? Surely not. — George Will

Part of comprehensive immigration reform is not just the path to citizenship for undocumented workers, but also the ability for families to be together. — Pramila Jayapal

When you take comprehensive, then we're dealing with certain issues like full citizenship ... And whatever else we disagree on, I think we would agree on that that's a more toxic and contentious issue, granting full amnesty. — Herbert Spencer

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. — Bob Goodlatte

As a newcomer to America who learned to 'speak American' by watching movies, I firmly believe that to change the politics of immigration and citizenship, we must change culture - the way we portray undocumented people like me and our role in society. — Jose Antonio Vargas

A special pathway to citizenship is off the table ... when I talk to members of the group in the Senate, they're saying that we're both saying the same thing. — Raul Labrador

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. — Russell Pearce

It is interesting that the rhetoric and some state initiatives of multiculturalism in the West are accompanied by the gathering strength of right wing politics....Everywhere in the West 'immigration,' a euphemistic expression for racist labor and citizenship policies, has become a major election platform....The media and some members of the Canadian intelligentsia speak in terms of the end of 'Canadian culture,' displaying signs of feeling threatened by these 'others,' who are portrayed as an invasive force. In the meantime, Western capital roves in a world without borders, with trade agreements such as GATT and NAFTA ensuring their legal predations, while labour from third world countries is both locked in their national spaces and locked out from Western countries, marked by a discourse of illegality and alienness. — Himani Bannerji

When it comes to fighting for citizenship that many people take for granted, there isn't anyone I would not talk to. When it comes to immigration, there isn't any question I will not answer. — Jose Antonio Vargas

We can't even expect our immigration officials not to make citizens of convicted felons.1 Tens of thousands of immigrants have been granted citizenship after being convicted of crimes in the United States. And, no, you can't see their names or read about their crimes. A year before the 1996 presidential election, the Clinton White House worked feverishly to naturalize 1 million immigrants in time for Clinton's reelection. Criminal background checks were jettisoned for 200,000 applicants, so that citizenship was granted to at least 70,000 people with FBI criminal records and 10,000 with felony records.2 Murderers, robbers, and rapists were all made our fellow Americans so the Democrats would have a million new voters by the 1996 election. In 2013 alone, the Obama administration released 36,007 convicted criminal aliens with about 88,000 convictions among them - including 426 for rape and 193 for murder.3 They'll soon be your fellow citizens, too. — Ann Coulter

The time for common-sense immigration reform is now," Grayson said in a news release. "We must set forth a straightforward route to citizenship for the undocumented immigrants who already live in our communities, work for our businesses and want to give back to the country that they call home. — Alan Grayson

Marco Rubio said he was personally open over a long period of time to offering a path to citizenship for immigrants here illegally. Rubio's work on a comprehensive immigration bill is one of his biggest vulnerabilities with Republican primary voters. — Ted Cruz

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

With all of the talk about polling and demographics, I think too many people have lost touch with the human and moral crisis of deportations. Every day, roughly 1,000 people are deported because the Republican leadership of the House of Representatives is denying the majority of the US Congress a chance to vote on citizenship. I will be arrested today because the labor movement stands with the families tragically ripped apart by John Boehner and the House Republicans' embrace of a broken immigration system. — Arlene Holt Baker

I appreciate the good work that senators in both parties have put into trying to fix our broken immigration system. There are some good elements in this proposal, especially increasing the resources and manpower to secure our border and also improving and streamlining legal immigration. However, I have deep concerns with the proposed path to citizenship. To allow those who came here illegally to be placed on such a path is both inconsistent with rule of law and profoundly unfair to the millions of legal immigrants who waited years, if not decades, to come to America legally. — Ted Cruz

Hard-working immigrant workers in this country deserve a real path to citizenship as a part of comprehensive immigration reform ... We will continue to work with the immigrant rights community and our allies in Congress to devise a truly comprehensive model that places immigrant and workers' rights at the head of the line. — John Sweeney

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. — Joaquin Castro