42 Inspiring Immigration Quotes

Immigration has always been a powerful and transformative force, shaping societies, cultures, and individuals. From the dreams of early pioneers to the journeys of modern-day migrants, the quest for a better life continues to resonate deeply across generations. To honor this enduring spirit, we have curated a collection of the top 42 inspiring immigration quotes. These poignant words from celebrated authors, leaders, and thinkers capture the essence of the immigrant experience, shedding light on the strength, resilience, and hope that define the journey. Whether you are an immigrant or simply an admirer of the incredible human stories that arise from migration, these quotes will offer profound insights and heartfelt inspiration.

1. “Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.” - Franklin D. Roosevelt

2. “People are talking about immigration, emigration and the rest of the fucking thing. It's all fucking crap. We're all human beings, we're all mammals, we're all rocks, plants, rivers. Fucking borders are just such a pain in the fucking arse.” - Shane MacGowan

3. “A simple way to take measure of a country is to look at how many want in.. And how many want out.” - Tony Blair

4. “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 person's becoming in every facet 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... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.” - Theodore Roosevelt

5. “We asked for workers. We got people instead.” - Max Frisch

6. “Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave the country.” - Theodore Roosevelt

7. “Your life depends on a random stranger who could kill you, will probably disrespect you, and will most likely pay you much less than you deserve. But even those prospects are better than the ones you used to have. This is the life of los jornaleros – the day laborers.” - Gustavo Arellano

8. “In lieu of those checks and balances central to our legal system,non-citizens face an executive that is now investigator, prosecutor,judge, jury and jailer or executioner. In an Orwellian twist, Bush'sorder calls this Soviet-style abomination 'a full and fair trial.” - William Safire

9. “We have become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams.” - Jimmy Carter

10. “I take issue with many people's description of people being "Illegal" Immigrants. There aren't any illegal Human Beings as far as I'm concerned.” - Dennis Kucinich

11. “Yo no soy mexicano. Yo no soy gringo. Yo no soy chicano. No soy gringo en USA y mexicano en Mexico. Soy chicano en todas partes. No tengo que asimilarme a nada. Tengo mi propia historia.” - Carlos Fuentes

12. “Most of the time it's not the Europeans who belittle us. What happens when we look at them is that we belittle ourselves. When we undertake the pilgrimage, it's not just to escape the tyranny at home but also to reach to the depths of our souls. The day arrives when the guilty must return to save those who could not find the courage to leave.” - Orhan Pamuk

13. “Lady and gentleman, when my parents left Korea with nothing but the clothes on their backs and the considerable wealth they had amassed in the shipping business, they had a dream. They had a dream that one day amid the snowy hilltops of western North Carolina, their son would lose his virginity to a cheerleader in the woman's bathroom of a Waffle House just off the interstate. My parents have sacrificed so much for this dream! And that is why we must journey on, despite all trials and tribulations! Not for me and least of all for the poor cheerleader in question, but for my parents and indeed for all immigrants who came to his great nation in what they themselves could never have: CHEERLEADER SEX.” - John Green

14. “The truth is, immigrants tend to be more American than people born here.” - Chuck Palahniuk

15. “History shows that it is not only senseless and cruel, but also difficult to state who is a foreigner.” - Claudio Magris

16. “Nihil humanum a me alienum puto, said the Roman poet Terence: 'Nothing human is alien to me.' The slogan of the old Immigration and Naturalization Service could have been the reverse: To us, no aliens are human.” - Christopher Hitchens

17. “I believe Western culture -- rule of law, universal suffrage, etc. -- is preferable to Arab culture: that's why there are millions of Muslims in Scandinavia, and four Scandinavians in Syria. Follow the traffic. I support immigration, but with assimilation.” - Mark Steyn

18. “Dat's what they say of this cauntry back home, Kath: 'America, the land of milk and honey.' Bot they never tell you the milk's gone sour and the honey's stolen.” - Andre Dubus III

19. “AMNESTY, n. The state's magnanimity to those offenders whom it would be too expensive to punish.” - Ambrose Bierce

20. “My mother did not want to go to America: this much I knew. I knew it by the way she became distracted and impatient with my sister, by the way she stopped tucking us into bed at night. I knew it from watching her feet, which began to shuffle after my father announced the move, as though they threw down invisible roots that needed to be pulled out with each step.” - Catherine Chung

21. “...the Statue of Liberty's got this invitation: 'Give me your tired, your poor, your reeking homeless--''Huddled masses,' said Ira. 'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.'...Okay, fine. So like everybody in the old countries says, 'Hey, I'm a huddled mass,' and they all wanna come over.” - Neal Shusterman

22. “These days, it feels to me like you make a devil's pact when you walk into this country. You hand over your passport at the check-in, you get stamped, you want to make a little money, get yourself started... but you mean to go back! Who would want to stay? Cold, wet, miserable; terrible food, dreadful newspapers - who would want to stay? In a place where you are never welcomed, only tolerated. Just tolerated. Like you are an animal finally house-trained.” - zadie smith

23. “No fiction, no myths, no lies, no tangled webs - this is how Irie imagined her homeland. Because homeland is one of the magical fantasy words like unicorn and soul and infinity that have now passed into language.” - zadie smith

24. “The country was a dreamland; and perhaps it even reminded my wife's grandfather of the night he woke up drunk in his friend's house, beside his friend's wife, everything similar but new, different, better. The United States of America was like an eternity of those first disorientating seconds of not knowing and not wanting to.” - Tod Wodicka

25. “Once again she would arrive at a foreign place. Once again be the newcomer, an outsider, the one who did not belong. She knew from experience that she would quickly have to ingratiate herself with her new masters to avoid being rejected or, in more dire cases, punished. Then there would be the phase where she would have to sharpen her senses in order to see and hear as acutely as possible so that she could assimilate quickly all the new customs and the words most frequently used by the group she was to become a part of--so that finally, she would be judged on her own merits.” - Laura Esquivel

26. “When Europeans arrived on this continent, they blew it with the Native Americans. They plowed over them, taking as much as they could of their land and valuables, and respecting almost nothing about the native cultures. They lost the wisdom of the indigenous peoples-wisdom about the land and connectedness to the great web of life…We have another chance with all these refugees. People come here penniless but not cultureless. They bring us gifts. We can synthesize the best of our traditions with the best of theirs. We can teach and learn from each other to produce a better America…” - Mary Pipher

27. “Recognize yourself in he and she who are not like you and me.” - Carlos Fuentes

28. “The question of the stranger in a society which estranges everybody from it--while forcing everybody to assimilate their own alienation--takes cover under dubious and sinister masks.” - Norman Manea

29. “As I would learn later on, developed countries will always welcome the Einsteins of this world -- those individuals whose talents are already recognized and deemed to have value. This welcome doesn't usually extend to the poor and uneducated people seeking to enter the country. But the truth, supported by the facts of history and the richness of immigrant contribution to America's distinction in the world, is that the most entrepreneurial, innovative, motivated citizen is the one who has been given an opportunity and wants to repay the debt.” - Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa

30. “Wedding was quiet and small, home they shared was soulless, their food bland. Sarla and her husband felt like guests in that home rather than family. They wondered what had happened to their son.” - shilpi somaya gowda

31. “As we all came to discover the limitations of assimilation, we grew closer as a family” - Miguel Syjuco

32. “Slowly, even though I thought it would never happen, New York lost its charm for me. I remember arriving in the city for the first time, passing with my parents through the First World's Club bouncers at Immigration, getting into a massive cab that didn't have a moment to waste, and falling in love as soon as we shot onto the bridge and I saw Manhattan rise up through the looks of parental terror reflected in the window. I lost my virginity in New York, twice (the second one wanted to believe he was the first so badly). I had my mind blown open by the combination of a liberal arts education and a drug-popping international crowd. I became tough. I had fun. I learned so much.But now New York was starting to feel empty, a great party that had gone on too long and was showing no sign of ending soon. I had a headache, and I was tired. I'd danced enough. I wanted a quiet conversation with someone who knew what load-shedding was.” - Mohsin Hamid

33. “there may be thunder in Europe but it is in America the lightning will fall” - Ambrose Bierce

34. “Even judges' children hear something about the world, they go to the Black Sea like everyone in the country. They look out and feel the same urge to go somewhere, feel it tugging at them from head to toe. You don't have to be particularly bad off to think: This can't be a the life I get. The judges' children know as well as Lilli and me that the same sky that looks down on the border guards stretches all the way to Italy or Canada, where things are better than here. One way or the other, the attempt will be made, whether sooner or later, in this way or that.” - Herta Müller

35. “Raging crime, class warfare, invasive immigrants, light morals, public misbehavior. Always we convince ourselves that the parade of unwelcome and despised is a new phenomenon, which is why the phrase "the good old days" has passed from cliché to self-parody.” - Anna Quindlen

36. “I did not come to this country for the terror from paramilitary," declared Voytek, hoarsely. "I did not come to this country for motherfucker. But motherfucker is waiting. Always. Is carceral state, surveillance state. Orwell. You have read Orwell?” - William Gibson

37. “If only the right person would have to leave, everyone else would be able to stay in the country.” - Herta Müller

38. “As she continues to answer questions about her employment, all these words mean little more to her now than I AM SOPHISTICATED, I AM WORTHY, I AM SOPHISTICATED, I AM WORTHY. She attempts the posture of a politician's wife, shoulders held back, dignifIed yet modest.” - Tania James

39. “Maybe that's what living in America does to you: it spreads you into far distances until you're just little bits rolling apart.” - Marina Budhos

40. “Illegal immigrants are to immigration what shoplifters are to shopping.” - Jerry Agar

41. “All human populations are in some sense immigrants. All hostility between different cultures in one place has an aspect of the classic immigrant grudge against the next boatload approaching the shore. To defend one’s home and fields and ancestral graves against invasion seems a right. But to claim unique possession – to compound the fact of settlement with the aspect of a landscape into an abstract of eternal and immutable ownership – is a joke.” - Neal Ascherson

42. “God's love for others does not stop at the border; neither should ours.” - Dillon Burroughs