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Home · Politics

Immigration Director Ken Cuccinelli: Statue Of Liberty Poem 'Of Course' Refers To People From Europe

Cuccinelli, acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said that the poem doesn't apply to people "likely to go on welfare."
Immigration Director Ken Cuccinelli: Statue Of Liberty Poem ‘Of Course’ Refers To People From Europe
By Kirsten West Savali · Updated October 23, 2020

Ken Cuccinelli, the acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said on Tuesday that the well-known inscription on the Statue of Liberty refers to people migrating from Europe, not people who “are likely to go on welfare.”

“The New Colossus,” the sonnet written by U.S. poet Emma Lazarus, reads:

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

The following stanza appears at the base of Statue of Liberty:

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.”

In an interview with CNN‘s Erin Burnett, Cuccinelli argued that the poem “referred back to people coming from Europe where they had class-based societies…where people were considered wretched if they weren’t in the right class.”

CNN's Erin Burnett challenges acting US Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Ken Cuccinelli on the Trump administration's new immigration regulation, saying her grandparents came to America with no education and that the rule would exclude people like her. pic.twitter.com/kyzZLpW5lj

— OutFrontCNN (@OutFrontCNN) August 13, 2019

On Monday, President Donald Trump issued a new immigration rule that privileges wealthier immigrants, while targeting those who need may need financial assistance or other public services.

Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke pointed out that Trump has made it clear that “he wants more immigrants like those from Nordic countries, the whitest places on the face of the planet.”

As ESSENCE previously reported, First Lady Melania Trump née Melanija Knavs, later changed to Melania Knauss, first came to the U.S. from Slovenia in 1996, first using a tourist visa, then a string of working visas until becoming a U.S. citizen in 2006.

TOPICS:  Donald Trump immigration Ken Cuccinelli statue of liberty White Supremacy
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