QotD: Immigration

America could not survive without immigration. Even the undocumented immigrants are contributing to our economy. That's the country my parents came to. That's the image we have to portray to the rest of the world: kind, generous, a nation of nations, touched by every nation, and we touch every nation in return. That's what people still want to believe about us. They still want to come here. We've lost a bit of the image, but we haven't lost the reality yet. And we can fix the image by reflecting a welcoming attitude — and by not taking counsel of our fears and scaring ourselves to death that everybody coming in is going to blow up something. It ain't the case.

Colin Powell, interviewed by GQ, quoted in Hit and Run, 2007-09-11