Ira Mehlman Quotations

Obviously, these are well-orchestrated, well-organized rallies that are taking place, and they represent the views of the people who are out there, primarily people who have broken the law and want to be rewarded for it.

If the Senate does go ahead and pass something that looks like amnesty, they will never get this passed in the House.

But churches have been actively involved in aiding people who are breaking the law. Churches should not expect to be exempt when they're disobeying the law.

Given the president's approval rating these days, and with one-third of the Senate up for re-election this year, they are not going to follow the president off the cliff on this one.

If the federal government isn't going to do the job and Arizona is footing billions of dollars a year for illegal aliens, it makes sense for the state to get involved.

He's going to run into stiff opposition. I suspect that he will also find himself the target of people who believe that what he's doing is really detrimental to the well-being of the American middle class.

I think it's going to be difficult for the president. Whatever political capital he thought he had last year is spent and, like the rest of the federal government, is in deficit. Amnesty, on a visceral level, most Americans object to.

It is a de facto amnesty. It rewards people who broke the law. It puts at a disadvantage kids who didn't break the law.

Just as you can be for health care reform without having any animosity toward nurses, you can be in favor of immigration reform without bearing any animosity toward immigrants.

That's the reason we have large-scale illegal immigration: because we send a clear message that there are no negative consequences to breaking our immigration laws. And if you persevere long enough, you are going to get what you want.

Most Americans feel it doesn't make any sense for people to come into the country illegally, give birth and have a new U.S. citizen. But the advocates for illegal immigrants will make a fuss; they'll claim you're punishing the children, and I suspect the leadership doesn't want to deal with that.

Why admit people with TPS if you know they're never going to leave.

The reason we set limits in the first place is because it has an impact on everyone else. Changing it will change the illegality, but it doesn't change the impact. Immigration affects labor markets and social institutions.

We think this could be a major, precedent-setting case.

You have to create conditions that encourage people to deport themselves. We didn't get to 12 million people overnight. We're not going to get back down overnight.

There is no reason to flood the labor market with more unskilled workers when we have a more than ample supply in this country.

The whole thing is a sham. At the end of nine years all these people are going to thank us and go home?

People should feel uncomfortable about breaking the law. If we have a policy that is demonstrated to be consistent, many people will get the message and decide that remaining here in the United States illegally isn't worth the price that they have to pay.

Stopping illegal immigration doesn't happen entirely at the border.

It's all about people who don't identify (with) the country they're in. You can't help think that we're heading in the direction of what's happening over there.

Each time immigrants have these giant rallies, the more they infuriate the rest of the American population with the idea that those who break the law get to march and somehow be rewarded. We have seen in France what happens when you try to bring in millions of people ... in many cases who are hostile. We saw there that it didn't work, and it won't work here.

It's interesting that the rest of us didn't get a day off from paying for services. We've got only a partial picture what life would be like if we didn't have millions of illegal immigrants here.

In some way that (the Gaza evictions) may be inspiring people to go, the only way to hold on the land is to be there.

The idea that if you break the law and put yourself and your family in that situation, that it's unfair for the government to take action against you, doesn't make any sense. It's unfortunate when these thing happen, but you have to look at who created the situation in the first place.