Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Common sense would tell you that the idea that Saudi Arabia was paying for bin Laden's expenses while he was living in Abbottabad is simply risible. Bin Laden's principal goal was the overthrow of the Saudi royal family as a result of which his Saudi citizenship was revoked as far back as 1994.
I see the sharp inequality between how Haitian and Cuban refugees are treated in Florida. Both groups come here because their lives are equally desperate. But on arrival, the Haitians are incarcerated, and some are immediately repatriated, whereas Cubans get to stay and are eligible for citizenship.
Donald Trump proposes to deport 16 million people, 11 million who are here without documents. And both Donald Trump and Mike Pence want to get rid of birthright citizenship. So if you're born here, but your parents don't have documents, they want to eliminate that. That's another 4.5 million people.
I've always found the rhetoric of mainstream civil rights leaders and organizations to be far too timid, accommodationist, and gradualist. It always seemed to me that they behaved like meek and gentle supplicants begging the oppressor for a few crumbs of justice, for a few molecules of citizenship rights.
People who have been hardworking, tax paying, those people ought to be given an opportunity to be on a track that leads towards citizenship, and if that happened, then they wouldn't be prey to the employers who say, 'We want you because we know that you work for a salary we could not lawfully pay anyone else.'
It wouldn't matter whether you were Latino or Hispanic or Norwegian. If you didn't have proof of citizenship and if the police officer had reasonable suspicion, he would ask and verify your citizenship. I mean, that's the way that it is. That's what the federal law says. And that's what the law in Arizona says.
Social media changed Chinese mindset. More and more Chinese intend to embrace freedom of speech and human rights as their birthright, not some imported American privilege. But also, it gave the Chinese a national public sphere for people to, it's like a training of their citizenship, preparing for future democracy.
People crave trustworthy information about the world we live in. Some people want it because it is essential to the way they make a living. Some want it because they regard being well-informed as a condition of good citizenship. Some want it because they want something to exchange over dinner tables and water coolers.
Perhaps there should be a box on the census form that says, 'I'm a criminal.' Everyone who has ever committed a crime would be required to check it. If everyone were forced to acknowledge their own criminality, maybe we, as a nation, would second-guess our apparent zeal for denying full citizenship to those branded felons.
Being born white in South Africa or anywhere in the empire and Commonwealth automatically conferred this special status. You had no problem finding a place to live, a job, trade union membership, access to social services. Being white, speaking English, you were accepted as English, entitled to all the rights of citizenship.
The world's moving; people move around the world. A lot of people coming to this country have terrific talent to bring to the country - not just in business and in the professions but in Parliament as well. And we need some failsafe system so that, right at the outset, they are aware that they have to drop any other citizenship.
I was born into a Turkish family that had acquired Italian citizenship. Many members of the family subsequently became British, French, Brazilian, and German, so there was a bit of everything. It was not uncommon for people in the family to speak seven languages: English, French, Ladino, Italian, Turkish, Arabic, and even Greek.
How can we possibly say the root of the Canadian approach to citizenship and immigration comes from Europe or the United States? I mean, we just don't do the same things. What I've said, very simply, is that unlike other colonies, for the first 250 years approximately, indigenous people were either the dominant force or an equal force.
I just always believe that we should not reward people with citizenship whose first act in this country was a violation of the law. And I continue to hold that view. But let me say, I think there is plenty of room here for compassion. And there's plenty of room here for crafting a solution that will deal with this issue in the long term.
I do not favor or support, nor will I vote for, a pathway to citizenship for people that are here who've broken the law. I would support - after we have developed a secure border - a mechanism for allowing those folks to work here in America... Everything that we should do should be based on good, sound policy and what's right for America.
In many parts of the world, chaining of people with mental illnesses is not uncommon, nor is seeing people walking around in clearly an unwell state, half naked, and no one takes any notice of them. It is tragic. There is a basic human right, which is not about just healthcare, but it is about the right to life with dignity, a right to citizenship.
It might help to know that in Afghanistan citizenship papers and birth certificates and the official registration of births and deaths are the exotica of faraway places. One is born 'in the time of the pomegranate harvest' or some such thing or one's birthdate is recorded as the first day of the year if you are even aware of the year you were born.
The law in Russia bans "propaganda of homosexuality," which is defined as dissemination of information that can cause harm to the spiritual or physical development of children, including forming in them the erroneous impression of the social equality of traditional and nontraditional sexual relations. It's a law that actually enshrines second-class citizenship - it makes it a crime to claim social equality.
For everybody has a natural right not only to defend his own person and property against aggressors, but also to go to the assistance and defence of everybody else, whose person or property is invaded. The natural right of each individual to defend his own person and property against an aggressor, and to go to the assistance and defence of every one else whose person or property is invaded, is a right without which men could not exist on earth.
Having my Canadian citizenship is a blessing at this time, and there's a part of me that feels very much one foot in and one foot out, and I know I can go back to Canada whenever. There are a lot of things that Canada does really well are the same things that are very messed up in the U.S., but I know that's a pretty self-centered stance. I don't know. It can be pretty discouraging, particularly in a city like New York. It's hard to see so many of the issues happening in the country in an up close way, but at the same time, there's a sense of positive solidarity here.