Barbara Jordan
Barbara Jordan
Barbara Charline Jordanwas a lawyer, educator, an American politician, and a leader of the Civil Rights movement. A Democrat, she was the first African American elected to the Texas Senate after Reconstruction, the first Southern African American female elected to the United States House of Representatives, the first known lesbian elected to the United States Congress, and the first African-American woman to deliver a keynote address at a Democratic National Convention. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among numerous...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth21 February 1936
CityHouston, TX
CountryUnited States of America
...for the system to be credible, people actually have to be deported at the end of the process.
[It is] one of the most complex and emotional issues of out time.
One thing is very clear: Illegal immigrants are not entitled to benefits.
We can certainly defuse the intensity of the anti-immigrant feeling if we can bring some reality to the discussion by showing that they are not using that many resources.
It is both a right and a responsibility of a democratic society to manage immigration so that it serves the national interest.
For our immigration policy to make sense, it is necessary to make distinctions between those who obey the law, and those who violate it.
Credibility in immigration policy can be summed up in one sentence: Those who should get in, get in; those who should be kept out, are kept out; and those who should not be here will be required to leave.
Let's all understand that these guiding principles cannot be discarded for short-term political gains. They represent what this country is all about. They are indigenous to the American idea. And these are principles which are not negotiable.
I never intended to become a run-of-the-mill person.
One thing is clear to me: We, as human beings, must be willing to accept people who are different from ourselves.
I believe that women have a capacity for understanding and compassion which man structurally does not have, does not have it because he cannot have it. He's just incapable of it.
For all of its uncertainty, we cannot flee the future.
We have made mistakes. In our haste to do all things for all people, we did not foresee the full consequences of our actions. And when the people raised their voices, we didn't hear. But our deafness was only a temporary condition, and not an irreversible condition.
I have confidence that we can form this kind of national community.