Cristina Henriquez Quotes

I'm an immigrant myself. It was a tough road to come to America and work.

As the 109th Congress continues to debate legislation that will affect the lives of immigrants, it is important for us to remember that we are a nation of immigrants.

Immigrants are people who leave one country, one society, and move to another society. But there has to be a recipient society to which the immigrants move.

Our nation relies on immigrants.

One of the things I think a lot about, I am perhaps a great example of the enlightened immigration policy of this country where I was able to come here to study and then stay back and work and build a life.

As an immigrant, I am grateful for the tremendous opportunities that this great nation has afforded me and my family. I am also aware of the ongoing challenges that immigrants confront, and understand that respecting law and borders is essential for keeping America strong.

Everybody has a different interpretation of immigration problems, and it's a highly personal experience. If anyone tells you there is a uniform solution to it, there isn't. As far as I'm concerned, it worked for me. And I don't know how to fix the problem.

We should be the pro-legal immigration party. A party that has a positive platform and agenda on how we can create a legal immigration system that works for immigrants and works for America.

I hope I'll have the opportunity to debate how we reform and update our immigration system. I will relate my own story and that of the countless immigrants whose American Dream stories have helped build our country into the greatest nation in the world.

Americans believe in the value of immigration. We are the most generous nation on earth to immigrants, allowing over one million people a year to come here legally.

We need the immigrants.

Immigration policy should be based on what is good for America, not what is good for Mexico. Immigration to America should not be the safety valve for Mexico.

The typical immigrant of the present does not really live in America at all, but, from the point of view of nationality, in Italy, Poland, Czecho-Slovakia, or some other foreign country.

The reason we have to close the back door of illegal immigration is so that we may keep open the front door of legal immigration.

I was very heartened by Rupert Murdoch's passionate interest in immigration reform. He is an immigrant himself. He understands from a business perspective how important immigration reform would be to our economy.

I'm a big believer in family-based immigration.

As a first generation American myself, I know that comprehensive immigration reform is good for our country. I know it will reduce our deficit, grow our economy, reaffirm our values, advance our ideals, and honor our history as a nation of immigrants.

We want to have a system where people can come here and work - go back and forth if they want to... so that we have an open door to the people who want to come and contribute to our country, who want to come and make a difference in their families' lives and our economy.

Our communities have been deeply enhanced by immigration, be it of Irish Catholics across the constituency or of Muslims from Gujarat in India or from Pakistan, principally from Kashmir.

Sure, immigrants will do work that no-one else will do. There was even a movie about it - 'A Day Without Mexicans.'

It is important to have safe borders, but at the same time, we can't forget what brought us here. This is an immigrant nation.

My own wife is from the Philippines and came here legally to this country, and there are a lot of people that want to be part of this nation, and I want them to be part of this nation.

We know that the United States Senate has passed comprehensive immigration reform. We know it can happen. And that, to me, is what we need to do. We have a broken immigration system. And I say this because we are a country that has always opened our doors. That's who we are.

I think any immigrant who comes to this country also knows somebody who is undocumented.

Typically, if a politician makes immigration an issue, it's because of the belief that immigrants are taking jobs from Americans.