"English is the 'language of liberty' for nations emerging from years of cultural oppression"
-Vaclav Havel
"My opinion with respect to immigration is, that except of some useful mechanics and some particular description of men and professions, there is no use of encouragement."
George Washington, 1794
"The mission of the United States is one of benevolent assimilation"
-William McKinley
"English is the key to full participation in the opportunities of American life"
-S.I. Hayakawa
“Bilingualism for the individual is fine, but not for a country.”
-S.I. Hayakawa
“By emphasizing the importance of a common language, we safeguard a proud legacy and help to ensure that America’s future will be as great as her past.”
-President Ronald Reagan , letter to U.S. ENGLISH, Mar. 24, 1987
"American institutions rest solely on good citizenship. They were created by people who had a background of self-government. New arrivals should be limited to our capacity to absorb them into the ranks of good citizenship. America must be kept American. For this purpose, it is necessary to continue a policy of restricted immigration. It would lie well to make such immigration of a selective nature with some inspection at the source, and based either on a prior census or upon the record of naturalization. Either method would insure the admission of those with the largest capacity and best intention of becoming citizens. I am convinced that our present economic and social conditions warrant a limitation of those to be admitted. We should find additional safety in a law requiring the immediate registration of all aliens. Those who do not want to be partakers of the American spirit ought not to settle in America."
(First Message to Congress, December 1923)
Coolidge, Calvin (former President)
“The English language empowers each generation of immigrants to access the American dream. Studies have shown that people who learn English earn more for their families, are better able to move about and interact in society, and can more easily build a solid future for themselves and their children.”
-Rep. Barbara Vucanovich
“My support of declaring the English language to be the official language of the Federal Government is based on two simple principles: unity and opportunity.”
-Rep. Gerald Solomon
“In order to have economic and social mobility in this country, we know that we must speak and write the central language. To the extent that we encourage people who enter our society not to learn American English, we consign them basically to a life without that opportunity.”
-Rep. John Porter
“I believe it is essential to have English as the official language of our National Government, for the English language is the tie that binds the millions of immigrants who come to America from divergent backgrounds. We should, and do, encourage immigrants to maintain and share their traditions, customs and religions, but the use of English is essential for immigrants and their children to participate fully in American society and achieve the American dream.”
-Rep. James Sensenbrenner
“The tie of language is perhaps the strongest and the most durable that can unite mankind.”
-Alexis de Tocqueville
“With all the divisive forces tearing at our country, we need the glue of language to help hold us together. If we want to ensure that all our children have the same opportunities in life, alternative language education should stop and English should be acknowledged once and for all as the official language of the United States.”
-Sen. Bob Dole
“The fact is that immigrants come here from every part of the world, and, in a generation or so, they become movie stars, politicians, businessmen, television personalities, and have all kinds of successful careers. But for these opportunities to open up, immigrants and their descendants must learn English as quickly as possible. That’s the admission ticket into the culture.”
-S.I. Hayakawa
"It's a sad day in America, when the law makers side with the law breakers, AGAINST the law abiding citizens."
- Ezola Foster
TEDDY ROOSEVELT ON IMMIGRATION &
BEING AN AMERICAN
"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. . . . We have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."
"The gift of a common tongue is a priceless inheritance and it may well someday become the foundation of a common citizenship."
--Winston Churchill
"Entry into this country-either as an immigrant or a visitor-is a privilege, not a right. The safety of our citizens must come
before the comfort and convenience of foreigners."
Michelle Malkin
“We should welcome all, but take seriously the rules governing their entry and participation in American life. Anything less
undercuts the sanctity of our laws and the value of being a citizen of the greatest nation on earth.”
--Thomas Jefferson
"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest for freedom, go home
and leave us in peace. We seek not your council nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you, and may posterity
forget that ye were our countrymen,"
Samuel Adams
"Our present immigration laws are unsatisfactory,all persons should be excluded who are below a certain
level of economic fitness."
-Theodore Roosevelt
Rights of Immigrants
"Born in other countries, yet believing you could be happy in this, our laws acknowledge, as they should do,
your right to join us in society, conforming, as I doubt not you will do, to our established rules. That these rules shall
be as equal as prudential considerations will admit, will certainly be the aim of our legislatures, general and particular."
--Thomas Jefferson
Too Rapid Growth by Immigration
"[Is] rapid population [growth] by as great importations of foreigners as possible... founded in good policy?...
They will bring with them the principles of the governments they leave, imbibed in their early youth; or, if able to throw
them off, it will be in exchange for an unbounded licentiousness, passing, as is usual, from one extreme to another. It would
be a miracle were they to stop precisely at the point of temperate liberty. These principles, with their language, they will
transmit to their children. In proportion to their number, they will share with us the legislation. They will infuse into it their
spirit, warp and bias its direction, and render it a heterogeneous, incoherent, distracted mass... If they come of themselves,
they are entitled to all the rights of citizenship: but I doubt the expediency of inviting them by extraordinary encouragements."
--Thomas Jefferson
The Porous Border
"For the sake of cheap
labor, the president is willing actually to open the floodgate. I would have
been more impressed if the president had said, 'I think the truth of the
matter, from where I stand, is the United States is no longer a country
defined by borders. We are just a place on a continent, the source of a
great deal of consumer activity, creating huge markets for the world, and
borders simply impede the flow of people, goods and services and we ought to
get rid of them.' They don't have the guts to say it but that is where they
want to go. That is the essence of the 'willing-worker/willing-employer'
analogy." --
Cong. Tom Tancredo
"I'm stunned, but not
surprised. I caught a glimpse of where the president was going when three
years ago he was quoted as saying that he wanted to make migration safe and
orderly. Well, at the time, legal immigration already was safe and orderly,
so the only thing he could have meant was illegal immigration. This is a
disaster." --
Glenn Spencer, president, American Border Patrol
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