The Trump Administration has taken the unprecedented step of pointing out that a propaganda poem is not actually U.S. Federal law. The media, naturally, is astonished by this extremism.
White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller found himself clashing with CNN correspondent Jim Acosta at Wednesday’s White House press briefing.
“What the president is proposing here does not sound like it’s in keeping with American tradition when it comes to immigration. The Statue of Liberty says, ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses,'” Acosta said, quoting from the poem The New Colossus, which was inscribed on the statue after its erection.
“It doesn’t say anything about speaking English or be a computer programmer,” Acosta continued. “Aren’t you trying to change what it means to be an immigrant coming into this country if you are telling them you have to speak English? Can’t people learn to speak English when they get here?”
Miller pointed out that English is already a requirement of naturalization.
“The notion that speaking English wouldn’t be a part of an immigration system would actually be very ahistorical,” he said.
Miller further rejected Acosta’s reference to the Statue of Liberty, noting that the poem Acosta had cited was added later.
A French statue with a Jewish poem subsequently attached is neither U.S. law nor American tradition. This is the new law.
THE THIRD COLOSSUS
The Lady of Liberty is not a French whore,
We have endured enough; we don’t want any more.
Don’t give us your tired, your poor huddled masses,
Your refugee refuse of conflict and lack.
They may be the finest of your foreign classes,
But nevertheless, they have to go back!
