Quotes About Citizenship

First, we must stop issuing drivers' licenses to people in our country illegally. Providing them with forms of government identification makes a mockery of our laws and undermines national security efforts.

In the midst of applying for American citizenship, of finally attempting to get my presidents in a row, I felt it incumbent upon myself to explore the national psyche in every way.

While as black people we've paid for our right to be in this country many, many times over, I still can't help but feel we psychologically still see ourselves as outsiders. I believe this is our country. As such we need to embrace it fully.

Each and every student deserves equitable access to a quality public education that prepares them for college, career, and citizenship.

These manly sentiments, in private life, make good citizens; in public life, the patriot and the hero.

If you just believe in our democracy, and you want an informed electorate, public schools are in your interest, and I think our country is dependent on public schools, whether or not you personally have a kid in the public school system.

You can't be an American if you don't speak English. Our public schools should be mandated to teach all children in English.

As I graduated from public schools and started working in newsrooms, I told myself that I am only the 'illegal' that my own country has not bothered to get to know.

We need the best and the brightest to go into public service.

I will never take a day off policing the people we pay and keep a public trust with. I will use my camera, my pen, my pad, and my network to do my part, to make sure that Americans will no longer fear their government. Or its employees. They work for us - not the other way around.

I am not someone who would raise my voice to seek publicity. I am a responsible citizen, and I continue to be so.

Puerto Ricans are United States citizens, and I think that the issue of statehood or independence needs to be addressed and needs to be resolved.

Cubans have no bar to being legalized once they are in America. All other Hispanics - with the exception of Puerto Ricans - have to go through a broken, dysfunctional process. One group is American from day one. And all the rest are trying to be.

Puerto Rico's participation per capita in the armed forces is more than most states, yet they can't vote for their commander in chief.

Puerto Rican culture is very different from Mexican culture. Part of the Mexican psychology is the idea of being an immigrant or being illegal or being confused with that. That doesn't happen with Puerto Ricans, because you're a commonwealth.

My dad was born in Cuba and my mother's family is Puerto Rican. But my parents are both extremely proud to be American citizens, and they raised me to take pride in being from this country.

As U.S. citizens, Puerto Rico has paid their part.

Some people wanted me deported - as if you can be deported to Puerto Rico.

Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens, but by their own choice, Puerto Rico is not a state. The relationship has worked well for Puerto Rico - which has strengthened its culture, language and economy - and for the United States, which has helped create in Puerto Rico a showcase of democracy and prosperity for all of Latin America.

China cannot pull in the best and brightest from all over the world. It's an ethnically defined nation, the opposite of an immigrant nation. You don't see a lot of American engineers trying to be Chinese citizens.

I think, in the longer view of things, there is a very powerful pull in the direction of participatory government.

Punishing individual immigrants who are deeply embedded in American communities is not the mandate Trump was given when he was elected.

I could not become an American citizen. I would not like to become a citizen of a country that has capital punishment.

The Democrats have prevailed because, at heart, we have embodied a great idea, which is that an elected government can be the instrument of the common purpose of a free people; that government can embrace great causes and do great things.