Quotes About Immigration

My father, when he arrived in this country found it difficult.

It wasn't easy for me to find my feet when I first arrived in Europe.

I can be a bit romantic about history, but I'm also pragmatic about the present. America cannot, of course, have open borders. We need a clear, sustainable immigration policy, one that better manages the flow of people who do not pose a threat and can contribute to our economy and culture. Immigration laws can be sensible without extinguishing the idea that brought so many here and compels so many to stay.

In the South it was feared that immigrants did not have the correct racial attitudes: five Italians were lynched, in Tallulah, Louisiana, for associating on equal terms with blacks;

Quoting Page 109: An Urban Institute study found that when public school costs were included, Mexican immigrant households in Los Angeles County in 1980 cost almost twice as much in state and local government expenditures than they paid in taxes.

Page 9: Whereas civil rights reform was driven by a mass-based social movement and was characterized by intense controversy, polarized voting blocs, regional tension, and high media visibility, immigration reform was primarily an inside-the-beltway effort, engineered by policy elites largely in the absence of public demand or controversy.

The Roman Church has grown and grown, fueled by immigration but also renewed by two pontiffs who have seemed to understand what Tocqueville knew: People want guidance for their souls once they are convinced they have them.

Both my parents are English and came out to Australia in 1967. I was born the following year. My parents, and immigrants like them, were known as '&pound10 poms.' Back then, the Australian government was trying to get educated British people and Canadians - to be honest, educated white people - to come and live in Australia.

Government cannot do it all. As we work hard to break welfare dependency and get young people ready for the labour market, we need businesses to give them a chance and not just fall back on labour from abroad.

So, are you off to do that now?' He smiled. 'No. It's not worth it now. Farmers keep cutting the wages. The only people who can afford to do it are illegals.' 'Asylum seekers and that,' she said. 'Really?' 'Yes. Give it a couple of years, there'll be no more gypsies working on the hops at all.

Japanese children were kept out of California classrooms as late as 1907 on the theory that they lacked the aptitude for higher learning.

There is no Thanksgiving back in the old country where I come from. You know why? Because being thankful is a sin.

I didn't flee a dictator or swim an ocean to be an American like some do. I just thought long and hard about it.

I came from México, but there's a lot of people here who, when they hear that, they think I crawled out of hell.

Americanah; Ayad Akhtar, American Dervish; Julia Alvarez, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents; Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street; Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao; Teju Cole, Open City; William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying; Nell Freudenberger, The Newlyweds; Cristina García, Dreaming in Cuban and King of Cuba; Chang-rae Lee, Native Speaker.

No one here wants to admit it, but the United States is part of México's problem. The United States is feeding the beast, man. I thought maybe if I came here, I could make a difference.

No one here wants to admit it, but the United States is part of México's problem. The United States is feeding the beast, man.

We're the unknown Americans, the ones no one even wants to know, because they've been told they're supposed to be scared of us and because maybe if they did take the time to get to know us, they might realize that we're not that bad, maybe even that we're a lot like them. And who would they hate

We're the unknown Americans, the ones no one even wants to know, because they've been told they're supposed to be scared of us and because maybe if they did take the time to get to know us, they might realize that we're not that bad, maybe even that we're a lot

the media, you'll learn that we're all gangbangers, we're all drug dealers, we're tossing bodies in vats of acid, we want to destroy America, we still think Texas belongs to us, we all have swine flu, we carry machine guns under our coats, we don't pay any taxes, we're lazy, we're stupid, we're all wetbacks who crossed the border illegally. I swear to God, I'm so tired of being called a spic, a nethead, a cholo, all this stuff.

And then there are a lot of people who come here because they actually want to try to do something good in this country. In my case, I was working at a newspaper in Sinaloa for years, trying to report on the drug war, trying to make people there aware of what was happening in their own backyard, but my bosses only had an appetite for the macabre. They kept sending me out to take photos of crime scenes that they'd plaster

We're the unknown Americans, the ones no one even wants to know, because they've been told they're supposed to be scared of us and because maybe if they did take the time to get to know us, they might realize that we're not that bad, maybe even that we're a lot like them. And who would they hate then? It

I am my own version of the DREAM Act.

I strongly support the bipartisan immigration measure previously passed by the Senate, and when I served in Congress I was proud to have helped introduce the House version of the bill. I also strongly support the DREAM Act.