Martti Ahtisaari Quotes

Well-meaning Europeans sometimes argue that unlike the U.S., their countries are traditionally 'homogeneous' and have little experience with immigration.

The British, and most European countries, have struggled to accommodate Muslim immigrants, but they have nevertheless welcomed them in large numbers.

Immigrants everywhere have been a wonderful bonus for the host countries. Sometimes it amazes me how anti-immigration feelings arise in Europe or the United States, when immigration has been wonderful for business.

Our good intentions have gotten in our own way and it's bad for immigrants.

Immigration is a legitimate concern, but it's not a good reason to leave the E.U.

We think of immigration as a Western issue but, of course, it isn't.

Uncertainty and fear and ignorance about immigrants, about people who are different, has a history as old as our Nation.

There are many Sheriff Arpaios. People who have taken to local city, county, and state governments across the county the idea that immigrants are the problem. That immigrants are to blame.

This is nothing less than a national tragedy…. It is time to consider these refugees arriving from Poland and elsewhere purely on their merits as migrants and in an unsentimental light. In the last 50 years these people have swarmed all over Europe, coming principally from Armenia, Russia and the Balkans. We should remember that they are European neither by race, standards, nor culture. They are, in fact, an Eastern people. In 2000 years no one but Britain has been successfully able to absorb them, and for the most part they owe loyalty and allegiance to none.

Immigration provides further justification for multiculturalism by creating an ever larger aggrieved class …. If we don’t significantly reduce immigration numbers, the assimilation problem will only get worse.

Immigration has always been a political one … the group coming in has never been good enough for the people who had come in earlier …

You can’ t be a national party in America and be perceived as an anti-immigration party.

...immigration today is a racial issue. It is one which sees masses of non-whites from around the globe immigrating to white countries

The problems which so sternly confront us to-day are serious enough without being complicated and aggravated by the addition of some millions of Hungarians, Bohemians, Poles, south Italians, and Russian Jews.

Massive immigration has only just begun. It is the biggest problem facing France, Europe and probably the world. We risk being submerged.

Immigration problems have been solved nowhere in the world.

At almost every step of modern immigration policy and immigration politics, we have exacerbated underlying problems and made things worse.

Americans don't want immigration. They don't want any more. Why can't we have a home? You see on 'National Geographic,' 'Oh, the indigenous people, they have a home.' Everyone else can have a home. We are the only people on Earth not allowed to have a home.

Irresponsibility is the mark of every European politician who holds out the promise of a better life to immigrants and encourages them to leave everything behind and risk their lives in setting out for Europe.

When I eventually get my hands on Covington, its more than just a fight: it symbolizes so many other things. It symbolizes the attitude toward immigrants in this country and around the world.

If Europe's outer border is not blocked off, it makes no sense to speak of quotas.

The self-righteous supporters of mass immigration think the rest of us are stupid and evil.

For years, we have underestimated the challenges of mass immigration.

What many of us object to is the politicians who, for whatever reason, forget that societies cannot easily absorb huge numbers of new citizens. I resent the suggestion that this perfectly reasonable view is motivated by racial hatred or personal spite.

The immigration policies that Donald Trump and the Republicans are pushing are downright hateful and must be stopped.