Top 24 Quotes by Jeh Johnson

There is a terrorist threat to this country that remains, and I believe that counter-terrorism needs to be the cornerstone of our mission, our vast mission... and aviation security is something that we still have a fair amount of concerns about.

We continually evaluate the world situation, and we not infrequently make changes to aviation security. We either step it up or we feel sometimes we're in a position to dial it back, and so this is something that happens periodically, and people should not overreact to it or over-speculate about what's going on.

Those of us in public office and those of us who aspire to public office have a responsibility to be reasonable, fact-based, in our rhetoric and to not suggest things that are unreasonable, to whip up a lot of emotion in public, which can lead to government overreach, fear, suspicions, and prejudice.

It's better for candidates to suggest ideas that are responsible, not ones that are incapable of being executed. People are influenced by what their leaders tell them. And bringing the level of rhetoric down brings the temperature down.

There are many examples in our history of overheated rhetoric leading to fear and prejudice and government overreach. My own grandfather, a sociologist, was dragged in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee. He said he wasn't a Communist and explained that American Negroes were patriots like everyone else.

No level of border security, no wall, doubling the size of the border patrol, all these things will not stop the illegal migration from countries as long as a 7-year-old is desperate enough to flee on her own and travel the entire length of Mexico because of the poverty and the violence in her country.