President Donald Trump's top immigration official on Tuesday offered a revised version of the poem long displayed inside the Statue of Liberty's pedestal that aligns more closely with the administration's latest rule aimed at curbing the number of people who enter the United States legally.
Ken Cuccinelli, acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, was asked by NPR whether the words of Emma Lazarus' “The New Colossus,” inscribed on a bronze tablet exhibited in the museum at the statue's base, remain "part of the American ethos."
"They certainly are," Cuccinelli said. "Give me your tired and your poor — who can stand on their own two feet and who will not become a public charge."
Critics of the policy have argued it is at odds with Lazarus' work, which reads in part: “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!”
Trump immigration official offers rewrite for Statue of Liberty poem.
Just when you think this Adminstration can't get any lower.
Ken Cuccinelli, acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, was asked by NPR whether the words of Emma Lazarus' “The New Colossus,” inscribed on a bronze tablet exhibited in the museum at the statue's base, remain "part of the American ethos."
"They certainly are," Cuccinelli said. "Give me your tired and your poor — who can stand on their own two feet and who will not become a public charge."
Critics of the policy have argued it is at odds with Lazarus' work, which reads in part: “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!”
Trump immigration official offers rewrite for Statue of Liberty poem.
Just when you think this Adminstration can't get any lower.