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1 " The interaction of disparate cultures, the vehemence of the ideals that led the immigrants here, the opportunity offered by a new life, all gave America a flavor and a character that make it as unmistakable and as remarkable to people today as it was to Alexis de Tocqueville in the early part of the nineteenth century. "
― John F. Kennedy , A Nation of Immigrants
2 " Equality in America has never meant literal equality of condition or capacity. There will always be inequalities in character and ability in any society. Equality has meant rather that in the words of the Declaration of Independence, "All men are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights." It is meant that in a democratic society there should be no inequalities in opportunities or in freedoms. "
3 " Oscar Handlin has said, “Once I thought to write a history of the immigrants in America. Then I discovered that the immigrants were American history." In the same sense we cannot really speak of a particular immigrant contribution to America, because All Americans have been immigrants or the decedents of immigrants, even the Indians as mentioned before, migrated to the American continent. We can only speak of people whose roots in America are older or newer. "
4 " Immigration policy should begenerous; it should be fair; it shouldbe flexible. With such a policy wecan turn to the world, and to our ownpast, with clean hands and a clearconscience. "
5 " Another way of indicating the importance of immigration to America is to point out that every American who ever lived, with the exception of one group, was either an immigrant himself or a descendant of immigrants. The "
6 " Perhaps our brightest hope for the future lies in the lessons of the past. The people who have come to this country have made America, in the words of one perceptive writer, 'a heterogeneous race but a homogeneous nation. "
7 " The famous words of Emma Lazarus on the pedestal of the Statute of Liberty read: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." Until 1921 this was an accurate picture of our society. Under present law it would be appropriate to add: "as long as they come from Northern Europe, are not too tired or too poor or slightly ill, never stole a loaf of bread, never joined any questionable organization, and can document their activities from the past two years. "
8 " Since 1607, when the first English settlers reached the New World, over 42 million people have migrated to the United States. "
9 " In 1797 a member of Congress argued that, while a liberal immigration policy was fine when the country was new and unsettled, now that America had reached its maturity and was fully populated, immigration should stop—an argument which has been repeated at regular intervals throughout American history. "
10 " Tocqueville delivered his dispassionate and penetrating judgment of the American experiment in his great work Democracy in America. No one, before or since, has written about the United States with such insight. "
