A poem at the Statue of Liberty that is a national symbol for the country’s embrace of immigrants became the topic of a rancorous exchange Wednesday at a White House news conference to announce President Donald Trump’s push for immigration reform.
Senior White House aide Stephen Miller told reporters the poem written by Emma Lazarus about the “huddled masses” is not part of the original Statue of Liberty.
Miller said the statue is a “symbol of American liberty lighting the world” and suggested it had little to do with immigrants.
Miller’s comment prompted ridicule on social media and angry responses from immigrant rights advocates.
Miller was responding to a question from CNN reporter Jim Acosta asking if the Trump administration’s new merit-based green card proposal was keeping with US tradition.
The reporter read a line of the Lazarus sonnet, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses.”
“The poem you were referring to was added later,” Miller said. “It’s not actually part of the originally Statue of Liberty.”
The National Park Service says Lazarus’ sonnet depicts the statue “as the ‘Mother of Exiles:’ a symbol of immigration and opportunity — symbols associated with the Statue of Liberty today.”
The statue was a gift from France commemorating its alliance with the United States during the American Revolution. Edouard de Laboulaye, a French political thinker and abolitionist, proposed the idea of the statue and made sure broken shackle and chain were at the right foot of the statue.
Writers and authors later asked Emma Lazarus, a poet and descendant of Jewish immigrants, to write a sonnet to be sold at an auction to raise money for a pedestal to hold the Statue of Liberty.
She wrote “The New Colossus” on Nov. 2, 1883, inspired by the plight of immigrants and refugees and her own experiences. The poem appeared in Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World and The New York Times.
She died four years later and the poem eventually faded from public memory.
In 1901, a Lazarus friend, Georgina Schuyler, found a book containing the poem and started an effort to resurrect the work. Her words were eventually inscribed on a plaque and placed on the statue’s pedestal.
The poem reads, “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.”
The Statue of Liberty and nearby Ellis Island have since become welcoming symbols for immigrants and refugees coming to the United States.
It draws thousands of visitors each day.
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Trump aide dismisses Statue of Liberty ‘huddled masses’ poem
Trump aide dismisses Statue of Liberty ‘huddled masses’ poem
South Africa to expel Kenyans working on US Afrikaner ‘refugee’ applications
JOHANNESBURG: South African authorities have arrested and will expel seven Kenyans accused of working without the correct documentation on a US government program to accept white Afrikaners as “refugees,” the home affairs department said Wednesday.
US President Donald Trump’s administration in May offered refugee status to the minority white Afrikaner community, claiming they were victims of discrimination and even “genocide,” which the Pretoria government strongly denies.
The US government reportedly engaged Kenyans from a Christian NGO based in Kenya to come to South Africa to fast-track the processing of applications for resettlement under the program.
During a raid on an application processing center in Johannesburg on Tuesday, “seven Kenyan nationals were discovered engaging in work despite only being in possession of tourist visas, in clear violation of their conditions of entry into the country,” the South African home affairs department said.
“They were arrested and issued with deportation orders, and will be prohibited from entering South Africa again for a five-year period,” it said in a statement.
The raid came after “intelligence reports indicated that a number of Kenyan nationals had recently entered South Africa on tourist visas and had illegally taken up work at a center processing the applications of so-called ‘refugees’ to the United States,” it said.
Trump essentially halted refugee arrivals after taking office in January but made an exception for the Afrikaners despite Pretoria’s insistence that they do not face persecution.
A first group of around 50 Afrikaners — descendants of the first European settlers of South Africa — were flown to the United States on a chartered plane in May. Others have reportedly followed in smaller numbers and on commercial flights.
The South African home affairs department said no US officials were arrested in the raid, which was not conducted at a diplomatic site.
No prospective “refugees” were harassed, it said, adding that the government had contacted US and Kenyan officials over the issue.
- ‘Unacceptable’ -
Ties between Washington and Pretoria have plummeted since Trump took office in January, with his administration lashing out at South Africa over a range of policies, expelling its ambassador in March and imposing 30-percent trade tariffs.
After reports emerged of a raid, US State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said in a statement to US media that “interfering” in US refugee operations was “unacceptable.”
Washington officials were “seeking immediate clarification from the South African government and expect full cooperation and accountability,” he said.
US President Donald Trump’s administration in May offered refugee status to the minority white Afrikaner community, claiming they were victims of discrimination and even “genocide,” which the Pretoria government strongly denies.
The US government reportedly engaged Kenyans from a Christian NGO based in Kenya to come to South Africa to fast-track the processing of applications for resettlement under the program.
During a raid on an application processing center in Johannesburg on Tuesday, “seven Kenyan nationals were discovered engaging in work despite only being in possession of tourist visas, in clear violation of their conditions of entry into the country,” the South African home affairs department said.
“They were arrested and issued with deportation orders, and will be prohibited from entering South Africa again for a five-year period,” it said in a statement.
The raid came after “intelligence reports indicated that a number of Kenyan nationals had recently entered South Africa on tourist visas and had illegally taken up work at a center processing the applications of so-called ‘refugees’ to the United States,” it said.
Trump essentially halted refugee arrivals after taking office in January but made an exception for the Afrikaners despite Pretoria’s insistence that they do not face persecution.
A first group of around 50 Afrikaners — descendants of the first European settlers of South Africa — were flown to the United States on a chartered plane in May. Others have reportedly followed in smaller numbers and on commercial flights.
The South African home affairs department said no US officials were arrested in the raid, which was not conducted at a diplomatic site.
No prospective “refugees” were harassed, it said, adding that the government had contacted US and Kenyan officials over the issue.
- ‘Unacceptable’ -
Ties between Washington and Pretoria have plummeted since Trump took office in January, with his administration lashing out at South Africa over a range of policies, expelling its ambassador in March and imposing 30-percent trade tariffs.
After reports emerged of a raid, US State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said in a statement to US media that “interfering” in US refugee operations was “unacceptable.”
Washington officials were “seeking immediate clarification from the South African government and expect full cooperation and accountability,” he said.
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