Quotes & Sayings About Immigration Life

We're keeping them alive," she said. "Sweetheart, the fence, the wall, is inhumane. People are dying."
"That's their choice,"he actually said. "They come here illegally, that's the chance they take."
"When did you get so hard?" she asked, holding his face between her hands. "They're human beings like us, looking for a better life for their families. You understand that, don't you? You did it for us."
"It's a humanitarian crises," she said. "And you're part of the problem. That's why you can't sleep at night. — Luanne Rice

Brian had always had an American name and it would go well with the new American life they envisioned......Their travails would be worth it if everything turned out right, Blanca said. She was surprised when I asked her why she had come. The answer seemed obvious for her. 'I came here to work,' she said, 'and for a better future for my son. — Margaret Regan

It is a commonplace of American life that immigrants have made our country great and continue to make a very important contribution to the fabric of American life. But ... under the pressures we face today, we can't afford to lose control of our borders, or to take on new financial burdens, at a time when we are not adequately providing for the jobs, the health care, and the education of our own people. Therefore, immigration must be a priority for this administration. — William J. Clinton

When Europeans arrived on this continent, they blew it with the Native Americans. They plowed over them, taking as much as they could of their land and valuables, and respecting almost nothing about the native cultures. They lost the wisdom of the indigenous peoples-wisdom about the land and connectedness to the great web of life ... We have another chance with all these refugees. People come here penniless but not cultureless. They bring us gifts. We can synthesize the best of our traditions with the best of theirs. We can teach and learn from each other to produce a better America ... — Mary Pipher

Even judges' children hear something about the world, they go to the Black Sea like everyone in the country. They look out and feel the same urge to go somewhere, feel it tugging at them from head to toe. You don't have to be particularly bad off to think: This can't be a the life I get. The judges' children know as well as Lilli and me that the same sky that looks down on the border guards stretches all the way to Italy or Canada, where things are better than here. One way or the other, the attempt will be made, whether sooner or later, in this way or that. — Herta Muller

All those who leave immigrate to better lives, but I wanted to better my death. Maybe it is the ending that matter, not the life, I thought. Maybe we, like elephants, walk towards our chosen burials. — Rawi Hage

One of the things I think a lot about, I am perhaps a great example of the enlightened immigration policy of this country where I was able to come here to study and then stay back and work and build a life. — Satya Nadella

But he was no longer in Tollygunge. He had stepped out of it as he had stepped so many mornings out of his dreams, its reality and its particular logic rendered meaningless in the light of day. The difference was so extreme that he could not accommodate the two places together in his mind. In this enormous new country, there seemed to be nowhere for the old to reside. There was nothing to link them; he was the sole link. Here life ceased to obstruct or assault him. Here was a place where humanity was not always pushing, rushing, running as if with a fire at its back — Jhumpa Lahiri

Immigration is not an issue that I read about in the newspaper or watch a documentary on PBS or CNN. It's an issues I've lived around my whole life. My family are immigrants. My wife's family are immigrants. All of my neighbors are immigrants. — Marco Rubio

We allow for complexity, and therefore make accommodations for disagreement and its patient resolution, in most of the big areas of life: international trade, immigration, oncology . . . But when it comes to domestic existence, we tend to make a fateful presumption of ease, which in turn inspires in us a tense aversion to protracted negotiation. We would think it peculiar indeed to devote a two-day — Alain De Botton

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

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

Immigration has defined my entire life. My parents left Mozambique with nothing but their wits in search of a better life for their kids. They moved to England in the 1970s, saw the classism there, and left for America soon after. — Jose Ferreira

For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life. — Barack Obama

We must look at what immigration to America involves. To the new arrivals, the change is excruciating. Learning a new language and dealing with strange customs make the first years of life in the new land painful ...
The economic system of the United States is a mighty engine of persuasion. It motivates people to do what otherwise they never would in return for fulfilling their dreams. In the process, people learn that there is no sharp line between physical well-being and the higher purposes of life. The comfort of owning a house is at once meeting the obligation to care for one — John Lachs

For all the noise and anger that too often surrounds the immigration debate, America has nothing to fear from today's immigrants. They have come here for the same reason that families have always come here-for the hope that in America, they could build a better life for themselves and their families. Like the waves of immigrants that came before them and the Hispanic Americans whose families have been here for generations, the recent arrival of Latino immigrants will only enrich our country. — Barack Obama

Getting my legal situation fixed takes a bit longer than we all thought: twelve years to be exact. Not a big deal. Only most of my life. — Patricio Maya

We are people of worship and work in service to God and to each other. It's that simple. It's that hard. While many run from Islam, or from poverty, immigration, AIDS, third-world debt relief, the church runs toward them all. It is a dangerous mission. But it is the mission to which God has called us. In our baptism, he calls us to a life of search and rescue. Each time we gather, we do so with the full knowledge that we are being sent. Sent to usher in the shalom of God, to bring shalom to every person, space, and place. The first step in not killing your Muslim neighbor is to join a church that reads the gospels (particularly Luke 10) and puts those words into action. We're moving beyond stereotypes. The future depends upon it. Beyond fear. Beyond anger. Beyond rage. Beyond caricatures. So be bold. And do not be afraid. — Joshua Graves

It feels as though it were just yesterday Grandfather exited my life like a bullet, leaving a bleeding hole behind. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Those life experiences that helped shaped my political beliefs are with me in every position I take and every vote that I cast - whether it be in favor of comprehensive immigration reform, strengthening Social Security and Medicare, or improving our nation's education system. — Mark Takano

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

I know that when I look at today's Mexicans and Central Americans, they seem to me fundamentally the same as my grandparents seeking a better life in America. On the other side, however, open immigration can't coexist with a strong social safety net; if you're going to assure health care and a decent income to everyone, you can't make that offer global. So Democrats have mixed feelings about immigration; in fact, it's an agonizing issue. — Paul Krugman

With just about every script, in almost every corner of the set, I was faced with the truth: This was my parents' life. My mother had sat in handcuffs; my father had once worn an orange jumpsuit like the dozens that sat folded in our wardrobe department. For the other actors and me on our show, this was all fantasy, the re-creation of a world we knew little about; for Mami and Papi, it could not have been any more real or painful...I've had so many scenes in which Flaca & I are doing the dirty work, like cleaning the kitchen or mopping the floors, which is when I think of my parents most. Long before they ended up in prison, they'd spent years handling the nastiest jobs, the ones often avoided by others. Manual labor. Low pay. No respect. They must've felt so trapped. It must've been so hard for them to maintain their dignity when others looked down on them or, worse, didn't see them at all. — Diane Guerrero

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

She had sculpted the mist, the way those who have no choice do. She had willed a life for the two of us in a new land. — Padma Lakshmi

I'll tell you what I don't believe, Alwyn. I don't believe there's a pretty forest in the sky with castles and a white light and God and all his angels waiting to welcome all the good people in. And you and me standing there sick with nerves while they check us out to see if we've made the grade. That sounds too much like immigrating to Australia. — Beverly Rycroft

Now it would be foolish and impossible to try and prevent the manufacture of films containing Canadian snow scenes; but there is no vestige of a doubt that when exhibited overseas they have a detrimental effect of immigration ... Everything that can be done should be done, to encourage the circulation of screen pictures that demonstrate that snow scenes and dog-trains are but a minor phase in Canadian life. — Charles Paul

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. — Mitt Romney

The flow of people into the United States into slavery, it follows the other types of immigration into the United States, so people who are trying to build new lives, trying to build a better life. — Kevin Bales

In Europe, there are many filmmakers working in the same territory: immigration, and the things that are most disruptive to European life today. That's not a judgment. I think it's good that cinema looks at such things. — Jean-Pierre Dardenne

Let there be children and old people but few whose occupation is neither hope nor memory. Let there have been immigration at some point: enough to fill the convenience stores, the foreign restaurants, but let it be forgotten. Let the children be all in school, a breath held in, released at 3 o'clock across the park. Let the town's rhythm be unquestioned. Let me be single: no children, no family. Let me not fit in. — Joanna Walsh

Identifying as a writer is a matter of self-acceptance. It's not a thing that can be given to you, or bestowed upon you. You are a writer if you write. That's it. If what you are seeking is to be acknowledged as a writer by other people, many of them strangers, you're in for a demoralizing journey. It is a silly club where those who have been 'accepted' are loathe to permit others into. It's sort of like how we Americans love denying our own immigrant origins while railing against immigration. — Vincent Louis Carrella