Australians are coffee snobs. An influx of Italian immigrants after World War II ensured that - we probably had the word 'cappuccino' about 20 years before America. Cafe culture is really big for Aussies. We like to work hard but we take our leisure time seriously.

Immigrants provide skills that we simply cannot afford to do without. They have contributed hugely to Britain's success.

My father was an immigrant who literally walked across Europe to get out of Russia. He fought in World War I. He was wounded in action. My father was a great success even though he never had money. He was a very determined man a great role model.

My father was the son of immigrants and he grew up bilingual but English is what my father taught me and what he spoke to me. America's strength is not our diversity it is our ability to unite around common principles even when we come from different backgrounds.

It's not surprising then they get bitter they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

We all know the stories about the Human Rights Act... about the illegal immigrant who cannot be deported because and I am not making this up he had a pet cat.

I'm an immigrant kid who came to America from India when I was very young and grew up in New York City with a single mom and really was influenced by all of those immigrant cultures bumping up against each other.

What motivated me? My mother. My mother was an immigrant woman a peasant woman struggled all her life worked in the garment center.

Nearly every study shows that competition from cheap foreign labor undercuts the wages of American workers and legal immigrants.

We should not blur the lines between legal and illegal immigrants. Millions of people around the world have gone through the process to come here legally and they followed the rules that required them to pay a fee learn English and learn about American history and government.

I love the new legal immigrants they want their kids to be safe just like I do.

It is simply a fact that the birth rate of our illegal immigrants exceeds that of our legal residents.

Instead California is one of only 10 states that provides in-state college and university tuition to illegal immigrants. That's grossly unfair to a legal high school student who moves out of California for a year then returns to attend college.

Therefore if we are a Nation of laws and a Nation of immigrants immigration should occur within a legal framework not through the machinations of illegal schemes and scams that threaten our national security.

I have written about the dispossessed immigrants the condition of women who do not enjoy the same legal rights as men the Palestinians who are deprived of their land and condemned to exile.

In Psalm 72 Solomon prays for power and fame but he says the purpose of influence is to speak up for others and one is the immigrant. He doesn't delineate between legal and illegal.

We should be the pro-legal immigration party. A party that has a positive platform and agenda on how we can create a legal immigration system that works for immigrants and works for America.

As Congress continues to debate ways to address illegal immigration we must remember the many hard-working legal immigrants that contribute so much to our nation's economy and culture.

Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave the country.

I mean we must act with intelligence. We must work on this framework so that immigration becomes an asset to both nations. Believe me what - just the Mayor Bloomberg said here in New York that this city would be stopped totally stopped if it were not by the immigrants working here.

Humor has historically been tied to the mores of the day. The Yellow Kid was predicated on what people thought was funny about the immigrant Irish. When you're different in a society you're funny.

A recent Pew Hispanic survey found that more than 70 percent of illegal immigrants from Mexico are interested in a guest-worker program and then returning home.

We immigrants can sometimes sound a little hysterical about this because we come from places that have tried this and we know where it leads. Anybody who's lived in countries with socialized health care knows that it becomes the dominant political issue.

Illegal immigrants are beginning to comprise a black market class of workers in our society jeopardizing the financial health of companies which play by the rules while themselves vulnerable to the exploitation by those willing to take advantage of their illegal status.