Elie Wiesel Quotes
How can a human being be illegal?
Wiesel, Elie. Address. First National Symposium on the Sanctuary Movement, 23 Jan. 1985, Temple Emanu-El, Tucson, AZ.
The words “illegal alien” are crude and needlessly harsh. There are people who are in American illegally, but the people are not illegal. There is no such term in United States law as “illegal alien”. See {640788}.
The quote is often misreported as “I am, you know, adamantly against illegal illegal immigration."
At the time, many people referred to immigrants who had entered the United States without the proper documentation or by contravening our laws were referred to as “illegals” or “illegal immigrants”. Bank robbers and rapists were never referred to as “illegals”—only immigrants. Carroll and others pointed out that there was no such thing as an “illegal person”—only illegal acts.
Elie Wiesel was a Romanian-born American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He authored 57 books, written mostly in French and English, including Night, a work based on his experiences as a Jewish prisoner in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps.
