Immigration Law Quotes & Sayings

There is international criminal organizations penetrating our southern based borders, and we need to do something about it. Secure the border, enforce the law, no amnesty, and go forward with the legal immigration system that gives priority to American working families and wages. — Scott Walker

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

Even if we didn't have a single person in the USA in violation of immigration laws, we'd still have to do immigration reform, because our legal immigration system is broken. It's not good for anybody. — Marco Rubio

Whatever open-border libertarians think about immigration law, once the immigration scofflaw steals, trespasses, or vandalizes private property, said alien is guilty of crimes. To say, moreover, that the state's laws made masses of men and women commit such crimes is to voice the philosophy of determinism, not individualism. — Ilana Mercer

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

There are racial considerations too grave to be brushed aside for any sentimental reasons. Biological laws tell us that certain divergent people will not mix or blend. The Nordics propagate themselves successfully. With other races, the outcome shows deterioration on both sides. Quality of mind and body suggests that observance of ethnic law is as great a necessity to a nation
as immigration law. — Calvin Coolidge

We must do everything in our power to keep families together, and to use common sense in our immigration laws. Children deserve better than to lose a parent because of an inflexible law. — Jose Serrano

The American people don't trust the Federal Government to enforce our immigration laws, and we will not be able to do anything on immigration until we first prove to the American people that illegal immigration is under control. And we can do that. We know what it takes to do that. — Marco Rubio

A guest worker program should help farmers who are willing to pay a fair wage for law-abiding, dependable workers - not punish them ... And for this reason I support replacing the H-2A program and implementing new policies that will bring our illegal agricultural workers out of the shadows, as a first step in the process of overhauling our nation's immigration system. — Bob Goodlatte

Continued reliance on preemption analysis suppresses judicial attention to the discrimination and equality concerns that should be motivating courts' consideration of subfederal immigration regulations. — Pratheepan Gulasekaram

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

I supported Arizona's immigration law by joining in that lawsuit to defend it. Every day I have Texans on that border that are doing their job. — Rick Perry

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

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

It is a serious undertaking and yes, we do need more fencing and we do need to use technology, and we do need more border control. And we need to have better cooperation by the way with local law enforcement. There are 800,000 cops on the beat, they ought to be trained to be the eyes and ears for law enforcement for the threat against terror as well as for immigration. — Jeb Bush

We want to shut down the day laborer site. This day laborer site undermines and violates federal immigration law, and it can't go forward. — Tom Fitton

Oh, Beli; not so rashly, not so rashly: What did you know about states or diasporas? What did you know about Nueba Yol or unheated 'old law' tenements or children whose self-hate short-circuited their minds? What did you know, madame, about immigration? Don't laugh, mi negrita, for your world is about to be changed. Utterly. Yes: a terrible beauty is etc., etc. Take it from me. You laugh because you've been ransacked to the limit of your soul, because your lover betrayed you almost unto death, because your first son was never born. You laugh because you have no front teeth and you've sworn never to smile again. — Junot Diaz

How many thousands of lives would be saved if we enforced our immigration laws, our guns laws, and our drug laws? Public safety is not being held hostage by the 'gun lobby,' but by the open borders lobby and the anti-law enforcement lobby. — Jeff Sessions

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

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

States were barred from financing their immigration systems with specific taxes on immigrants and transportation companies, leaving the continued existence of these state institutions to the general state fisc or the generosity of private charitable organizations interested in immigrant welfare and integration. The resource strain on states and charitable organizations placed enormous pressure on Congress to enact federal law. — Pratheepan Gulasekaram

Kennedy's immigration law was enacted during the magical post-1964 period, when Congress had free rein to push through the craziest left-wing legislation since the New Deal. It was the most destructive period in American history. — Ann Coulter

If we are to believe that our immigration laws simply have no value, as our current policies would have us believe, should we then simply throw them all out, the entire lot of immigration law? I hope not. — John Linder

A written regulation in NASCAR is about as reliable as an Egyptian immigration law. — Brock Yates

We already have immigration law, and it is being violated. Obama's executive amnesty is not the settled law. [Barak ] Obama's executive amnesty is outside the law, and that's why it's been stayed. — Rush Limbaugh

A federal appellate circuit looked at what [Barak] Obama was doing and said he can't do it. Immigration law is settled. — Rush Limbaugh

Congressional mistakes have dramatically increased immigration through a series of what I believe were ill-advised actions going back to 1965 when the basic notions of our immigration laws were revised. In 1990, Congress opened the floodgates by passing a 35-percent increase in legal immigration. — Ronald Reagan

There is no immigration policy in the US that is permitting what's happening. What's happening here is happening outside the law, that our leaders do not wish to enforce or acknowledge. And the same thing happened in the UK. — Rush Limbaugh

Border enforcement coupled with employer sanctions and threatening employers who hire immigration law violators is insufficient. — Jan C. Ting

Sen. Robert Menendez's Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2010 would try to nullify every single state and local law that fights illegal immigration. Congressman Luis Gutierrez's CIR ASAP Act with over 100 Democratic co-sponsors does the same thing. — Russell Pearce

The question taxpayers keep asking is 'why should we pay for services for those who have broken the law to get here?' They should not, nor should they be forced to be the Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) and School District of the world. This is evidenced in every poll I have seen indicating that every ethnic group is opposed to illegal immigration and supports enforcement of the law. — Michael D. Antonovich

This is the sheriff you're talking about, with a gun and badge that enforces the law. Nothing is going to stop me from cracking down on illegal immigration as long as the laws are there. — Joe Arpaio

Let's face it.., our current [immigration control] system is like a busy intersection without a traffic cop: sure there are laws on the books, but absent enforcement, there are too many accidents. — Ronald Reagan

[Barak] Obama's immigration behavior, executive amnesty, this DREAMer stuff - everything he's doing - is outside the law. — Rush Limbaugh

While I support immigration regulated through a legal framework, I do not support rewarding those who broke the law to get here. — Kit Bond

If we are going to solve the challenges we face, you need a President who will pursue genuine solutions day in and day out. And that is my commitment to you. We need immigration reform that will secure our borders, and punish employers who exploit immigrant labor; reform that finally brings the 12 million people who are here illegally out of the shadows by requiring them to take steps to become legal citizens. We must assert our values and reconcile our principles as a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws. That is a priority I will pursue from my very first day. — Barack Obama

Let's not even talking about chain migration, immigration, which is another trick, but all of these things are designed to penetrate the heart exactly is it has yours so that there can be a modification in the law, a moderation of the law here for this instance, and over here for another instance, and there for another. — Rush Limbaugh

Extending amnesty to those who came here illegally or overstayed their visas is dangerous waters ... We are a nation of laws, and I will evaluate any proposal through that matrix. — Jim Sensenbrenner

What (the Arizona immigration law) is likely to mean effectively is that if in the course of a traffic stop, a cop asks you for a driver's license, and you don't have one, and he asks you for other identification, and you have none, and he calls ICE and they have no record of you as a legal immigrant, you're in trouble. This is near-fascism? — Rich Lowry

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

Illegal immigration is praised only by those who benefit directly from it, whether in the familial sense of inexpensive nannies, cooks, or gardeners; or in the corporate interest of cheap labor in the hospitality industries, agriculture, and construction; or in the political sense of new liberal constituents; or in the tribal sense of expanding the so-called La Raza base. But the vast majority of Americans accept that when federal law is ignored, chaos ensues. — Victor Davis Hanson

I knew Arizona's SB 1070 would be controversial when I introduced it, but I did not expect the national immigration debate to revolve around a state law. While the anti-American open-borders Left attack me and the law as 'racist,' 'nativist' and their other empty smear words, the vast majority of the people of Arizona and America support the law. — Russell Pearce

The specific question was visa overstays.Current federal law requires a biometric exit-entry system when you come in on a visa. And the [Barack] Obama administration is just ignoring federal law. Forty percent of illegal immigration is not people who cross the borders illegally. It's people who come legally on a visa and never leave. — Ted Cruz

Illegal immigration is a genuinely national issue, and resolving it requires a national commitment not just on health care but also border control, law enforcement and other resources. — Jon Kyl

The fact that you have a policy of such consequence directly affecting millions of people and you have a legal question of great consequence about the scope of the president's authority to act in implementing the immigration laws in this way and you have a one-line decision from the court affirming by an equally-divided court, it's an inevitable consequence of where we are. — Donald Verrilli Jr.

In reply to claims that the old laws were discriminatory, but the new law would not be, he elaborated: I do not think you could draft an immigration bill in which you do not discriminate. I think discrimination is ordinarily the exercise of intelligence to make conscious choices. . . . we always discriminate, only the basis of it is different, each of us think[s] our own way is wise and right. . . . I think there is a rational basis and a reasonable basis to give a preference to Holland over Afghanistan For — Vox Day

When a politician like Marco Rubio is willing to sacrifice his career defining immigration reform legislation solely to insure that gays and lesbians are denied equal protection under the law, we have to admit that we're under attack. This is not pragmatic politics at work. These are the policies of bias, exclusion and unfairness. — Harvey Fierstein

Laws ostensibly directed at undocumented immigrants inevitably affect the treatment of lawfully present immigrants and citizens who share the ethnic, racial, or national origin characteristics of undocumented immigrants. — Pratheepan Gulasekaram

Next, we will create a modern immigration law. — Gerhard Schroder

It is wrong, and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws that we have seen ... in recent years. There is too much of it, and we must do much more to stop it." "The fact is that employer sanctions have been in the law ... since 1986 but no prior administration has made a serious attempt to enforce them. — William J. Clinton

It is a travesty, in my mind, for the state and local governments on the one hand to expect the Federal government to reimburse them for costs attributable to illegal immigrants, when on the other hand the State and local governments prohibit their own law enforcement and other officials from cooperating with the Immigration and Naturalization Service to locate or apprehend or expel illegal aliens. — Alan K. Simpson

In other words, under Attorney General John Ashcroft, the FBI, the INS and the Department of Justice are so out of control that they have actually begun to enforce U.S. immigration laws. — Ann Coulter

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

It's different when you talk about immigration in the abstract ... It's very different when you sit in front of a family, and [undocumented] children who grew up in this country, and who go to the same school you once went to ... They thought if we only enforce the law, people will self-deport ... It's not going to happen. The solution is not the status quo, or deportation when you're talking about breaking up families. — Mike Coffman

I think the world is more perilous and America is basically undefended. For me the two touchstones after 9/11 for domestic security were our borders. Not for discriminatory reasons or to stop immigration, but simply to allow law enforcement to find out who is in our country without facing an undocumented pool of aliens that increases by the hour. — Michael Scheuer

This is what everybody's forgetting about [Barak] Obama and his immigration law and his executive action and his amnesty on it, the Supreme Court decision. Immigration law is settled. — Rush Limbaugh

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

Our immigration law sucks, and we need to redo the whole thing, comprehensive immigration reform. And what that's gonna be is anybody who wants to come and vote Democrat, we're gonna send 'em a limousine and bring 'em in. — Rush Limbaugh

The immigration issue is about the separation of families, and that is not human, in any country in the world, but especially in the United States. We should not root for a law that separates families. — Demian Bichir

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

Why do we start immigration in 1965? Guess whose idea it was? Ted Kennedy. Ted Kennedy, 1965, we needed to reinstitute the immigration laws. It wasn't based in humanity, although that's the way it was sold. It was rooted in registering voters. — Rush Limbaugh

I swore an oath to uphold the laws on the books . Now, I know some people want me to bypass Congress and change the laws on my own. Believe me, the idea of doing things on my own is very tempting. I promise you. Not just on immigration reform. But thats not how our system works. That's not how our democracy functions. Thats not how our Constitution is written. — Barack Obama

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

In 2006, the Secure Fence Act was signed into law, requiring the Department of Homeland Security to build upward of 700 miles of double layered fencing along the U. S-Mexico border. While the Obama administration is quick to state that the targets have been met, only a small fraction - in fact, less than 40 miles - of the newly implemented infrastructure is double-layered. — Duncan Hunter

The Catholic Church also opposes any effort to make it easier to deport children; last week, the archbishop of Chicago, Cardinal Francis E. George, said he had offered facilities in his diocese to house some of the children, and on Monday, bishops in Dallas and Fort Worth called for lawyers to volunteer to represent the children at immigration proceedings. "We have to put our money where our mouth is in this country," said Kevin Appleby, the director of migration policy for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. "We tell other countries to protect human rights and accept refugees, but when we get a crisis on our border, we don't know how to respond." Republicans have rejected calls by Democrats for $2.7 billion in funds to respond to the crisis, demanding changes in immigration law to make it easier to send children back to Central America. And while President Obama says he is open to some changes, many Democrats have opposed them, and Congress is now deadlocked. — Anonymous

If our government has a policy, any political subdivision, that limits or restricts the enforcement of our immigration laws, we will sue them! And that suit will be $5,000 a day every day until that policy is changed! This law will be enforced. — Russell Pearce

For our immigration policy to make sense, it is necessary to make distinctions between those who obey the law, and those who violate it. — Barbara Jordan

NumbersUSA's work was critical to derailing the 2007 comprehensive federal immigration bill, which had, at that point, received the support of President Buch, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the high-tech industry, the Catholic Church, immigrant-advocacy organizations, and several industries reliant on immigration labor, including farming, food services, and construction. During the weeks leading up to the floor vote on the bill, NumbersUSA coordinated weekly phone calls with the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus, mobilized its members to engage key senators, and provided those senators with information and arguments necessary to oppose the bill. Several actors, including pro-immigrant advocates, restrictionists, and members of Congress, have credited NumbersUSA with causing the collapse of the bill in the Senate. — Pratheepan Gulasekaram

The most powerful nation on earth should be able to pass a fair, effective immigration law that combines compassion with responsibility and does not injure hard working Americans who are taxed up to here. — Bill O'Reilly

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

I believe Western culture
rule of law, universal suffrage, etc.
is preferable to Arab culture: that's why there are millions of Muslims in Scandinavia, and four Scandinavians in Syria. Follow the traffic. I support immigration, but with assimilation. — Mark Steyn

Liberals don't care. Their approach is to rip out society's foundations without asking if they serve any purpose. Why do we have immigration laws? What's with these borders? Why do we have the institution of marriage, anyway? What do we need standardized tests for? Hey, I like Keith Richards - why not make heroin legal? Let's take a sledgehammer to all these load-bearing walls and just see what happens! — Ann Coulter

The policy or advantage of [immigration] taking place in a body (I mean the settling of them in a body) may be much questioned; for, by so doing, they retain the language, habits, and principles (good or bad) which they bring with them. Whereas by an intermixture with our people, they, or their descendants, get assimilated to our customs, measures, and laws: in a word, soon become one people. — George Washington

Amnesty is a big billboard, a flashing billboard, to the rest of the world that we don't really mean our immigration law. — Richard Lamm

Our country, our people, and our laws have to be our top priority. — Donald J. Trump

Like all other law-abiding Americans, I fully support legal immigration. — Ted Nugent

And they are much more skeptical of the very idea of having immigration limits, whereas the public - again, independents and Democrats, as well as Republicans, although not necessarily all in the same proportions - have a much stronger sense of the American government and American law having responsibility to Americans specifically rather than to people around the world. So the polarization is up versus down, not really right versus left. — Mark Krikorian

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

If you have laws that you don't enforce, then you don't have laws. This leads to lawlessness. — Donald J. Trump

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

We must have sweeping, generous immigration reform, make existing law- abiding Hispanics welcome. Most are hard working family people. — Rupert Murdoch

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

[...] equality and nondiscrimination norms should play a greater role in assessments of both federal and subfederal immigration law. As such, we view certain restrictionist laws with greater skepticism than integrationist efforts. — Pratheepan Gulasekaram

It was left to the Progressive movement in America (as to the Fabians in Britain) to promote eugenics, Prohibition, dietary fads, the compulsory sterilisation of those they deemed 'unfit', and preferential treatment in immigration law of 'Nordic' (and preferably Protestant) immigrants. — Markham Shaw Pyle

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

I know that many Irish-born New Yorkers are caught in the trap of our federal immigration policies. If we are going to continue to attract the best and the brightest - and Ireland has more than its fair share - we need to inject some common sense into our immigration laws, and I'm doing my best to make that case in Washington. — Michael Bloomberg

We have never had the will to enforce the immigration laws. What you see is what you'll continue to get. — Charlie Munger

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

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

I believe that it is not enough, as I said, to tinker at the margins of U.S. immigration law ... the United States must institute comprehensive reforms that conform to the realities of the era in which we live. — Ronald Reagan

If you don't control the borders, it doesn't matter what immigration laws you have. — Thomas Sowell