August 14, 2019--Give Me Your White People

Politico reports that Ken Cuccinelli, the 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 affixed to the Statue of Liberty remain "part of the American ethos." 

"They certainly are," Cuccinelli said. Rewriting the poem he said, "Give me your tired and your poor--who can stand on their own two feet and who will not become a public charge."

Cuccinelli's comments follow the administration's announcement Monday of a "public charge" regulation allowing federal officials to deny green cards to legal immigrants who have received certain public benefits or who are deemed likely to do so in the future.

Critics of the policy have argued it is at odds with Lazarus' poem, 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!”

This would mean that not only my but I suspect all of your ancestors would have at one time been denied refuge in America. Of course, so would Cuccinelli's.

What sort of a man is he?

A self-described opponent of homosexuality, Cuccinelli in his position as Virginia Attorney General defended anti-sodomy laws and prohibitions on same-sex marriage. Cuccinelli rejects the scientific consensus on climate change, and in his position as Attorney General investigated climate scientists, who he argued were engaged in fraud. He filed lawsuits against the Obama administration's Environmental Protection Agency. Cuccinelli sought to prohibit undocumented immigrants from attending universities, repeal 14th Amendment-guaranteed birthright citizenship, and force employees to speak English in the workplace.

And, yes, as a grandson of Irish and Italian immigrants by his own policies he also would not have been allowed to enter America. There's something to be said for that.