Wretched

I thought I had heard it all, but then I read the comments of Ken Cuccinelli, the acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, about the inscription at the base of the Statue of Liberty. Mister Cuccinelli insisted in an interview with CNN that the poem referred to "people coming from Europe." The poem being referenced was written by Emma Lazarus in 1883 as part of a fundraising campaign to construct a pedestal upon which Lady Liberty might stand. It reads, "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore." It concludes, "Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" Acting director Cuccinelli suggested that this was a direct reverence to European immigrants because, "people coming from Europe where they had class based societies where people were considered wretched if they weren't in the right class." Earlier in the day, in an interview with NPR, Acting director Cuccinelli was asked about the wretched being welcome on our shores to which he replied, "They certainly are. Give me your tired and your poor who can stand on their own two feet and who will not become a public charge."

It doesn't scan very well as poetry, but it certainly gives a better picture of how our current administration feels about immigrants. The author of the original, Ms. Lazarus, might not have agreed. She was inspired not so much by the rush of immigrants from Europe, but from Russian Jews fleeing anti-Semitic violence in their homeland. "The New Colossus" extols "world-wide welcome." Poets are notoriously less conscientious about details than they are about images, and so she callously left out things like how to get a Green Card. 

You're welcome here if you can stand on your own two feet. You will not be welcome if you become a public charge. Which is a little confounding since there are plenty of Americans born and raised on these shores who become a public charge and we don't send them anywhere. Which may be the next phase of this administration's plan: Deport the Homeless. Send them to a third country where they can await processing while the rich get richer and the poor get cast aside. 

Anybody else interested in getting a bronze replica cast of the plaque that can be installed somewhere in the Oval Office?