“Our attitude towards immigration reflects our faith in the American ideal. We have always believed it possible for men and women who start at the bottom to rise as far as their talent and energy allow. Neither race nor place of birth should affect their chances.”

— Robert F. Kennedy

“Nearly all Americans have ancestors who braved the oceans—liberty-loving risk takers in search of an ideal. . . . Immigration is not just a link to America’s past; it’s also a bridge to America’s future.”

— President George H.W. Bush, on signing the Immigration Act of 1990 into law

“I had always hoped that this land might become a safe and agreeable asylum to the virtuous and persecuted part of mankind, to whatever nation they might belong.”

— George Washington in 1788 (shortly before being elected the first president of the U.S.)

“As each new wave of immigration has reached America it has been faced with problems, not only the problems that come with making new homes and new jobs, but, more important, the problems of getting along with people of different backgrounds and habits. Somehow, the difficult adjustments are made and people get down to the tasks of earning a living, raising a family, living with their neighbors, and, in the process, building a nation.”

— John F. Kennedy, from his book A Nation of Immigrants (written in 1958, when he was a U.S. senator)

The first female secretary of State in U.S. history was born in what is now the Czech Republic. She immigrated to the U.S. with her family when she was 11.

The computer scientist and entrepreneur who co-founded Google—one of the biggest tech companies in the world—moved to the U.S. from Russia with his family when he was 6.

The world-famous physicist (and perhaps the most famous scientist in history) immigrated to the U.S. from Germany in 1933 to escape the Nazis.

The man who invented blue jeans moved to the U.S. from his native Germany at age 18.