I am among those Americans whose ancestors include men and women from many different European countries. The proportion of Americans of this type will steadily increase. I do not believe in hyphenated Americans. I do not believe in German-Americans or Irish-Americans; and I believe just as little in English-Americans. I do not approve of American citizens of German descent forming organizations to force the United States into practical alliance with Germany because their ancestors came from Germany. Just as little do I believe in American citizens of English descent forming leagues to force the United States into an alliance with England because their ancestors came from England.
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In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.
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Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave the country.
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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
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There was a time when we the U.S. had completely unrestricted immigration, when anybody could come to these shores and the motto on the Statue of Liberty had some real meaning. This was a country of hope and of promise for immigrants and their children, and as many as a million immigrants a year came in 1906 and '07 and '08. By 1914, roughly a third of the population was foreign-born or the immediate descendants of foreign-born...The fact that year after year hundreds of thousands of people left the countries of Europe to come to this country was persuasive evidence that they were coming to improve their lot, not to worsen it.
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There are no limits to either time or distance, except as man himself may make them. I have but to touch the wind to know these things.
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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.
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The proposition that Muslims are welcome in Britain if, and only if, they stop behaving like Muslims is a doctrine which is incompatible with the principles that guide a free society.
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There is nothing less to our credit than our neglect of the foreigner and his children, unless it be the arrogance most of us betray when we set out to Americanize him.
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The great social adventure of America is no longer the conquest of the wilderness but the absorption of fifty different peoples.
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Be careful in revising those immigration laws of yours.
We got careless with ours.
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The making of an American begins at the point where he himself rejects all other ties, any other history, and himself adopts the vesture of his adopted land.
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Amnesty is a big billboard, a flashing billboard, to the rest of the world that we don't really mean our immigration law.
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It almost seems that nobody can hate America as much as native Americans. America needs new immigrants to love and cherish it.
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Immigration is the sincerest form of flattery.
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Alien. An American sovereign in his probationary state.
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