On the history of immigration:

“People say to me, why are you so interested in immigration? Why do you fight this fight? Because if you know you’re history in this country, you have to fight this fight. I’m an Irish-American, an American of Irish descent. And I apologize to any British people here, but we were basically starved out of our country by the British in the 1840s.”

“I always have this argument with people who are hyphenated-Americans — second, third and fourth generation Americans — who say to me ‘we came here the right way,’ but no you didn’t. Read your history. You were lucky enough to find this country.”

On Mayor Nutter’s plan to modify his executive order on ICE holds in the coming weeks:

“Here at home, we had a great fight dealing with ICE and PARS. We convinced the mayor to sign an executive order, to stop that nonsense and protect the people who came to this city. We have a responsibility to protect them, whether they’re documented or not. Because when somebody calls somebody else ‘an illegal alien,’ all they’re doing is trying to dehumanize them. They’re human beings.”

“Much to my dismay … the mayor is dealing with this executive order in a totally different way than we intended.”

“I would urge you to call him, write him, email him and urge him to not to require me to reverse what he might do in the next couple weeks. They are only seven or eight weeks left in his administration. Leave it as it is. We’ll do fine. Don’t change anything and don’t make me have to change it back.”