How a verse on the Statue of Liberty became a stumbling block in US immigration debate

America is no longer the promised land. New legal immigration rules block low-income people from entering. Only wealthy foreigners will now be able to apply for a green card, writes “Radio Liberty«.

Фото: Depositphotos

Donald Trump came to the White House with a promise to repair a broken immigration system, and not only save the country from illegal immigration, but also severely restrict legal. The fact that the administration is embarking on a reform, he announced back in May.

We are here today, on this wonderful spring day in the Rose Garden, to announce a new plan to create a fair, modern, and rule of law immigration system to the United States. Make it the perfect time. If our plan is adopted, it will turn the immigration system of America into the pride of our nation and the envy of the modern world.

According to the president, US immigration practice is unacceptable liberalism. He is especially outraged by the visa lottery, when random people get the right to permanent residence, and immigration on the basis of kinship.

Due to our defective rules, green cards from year to year are provided mainly to people of low-paid and unskilled labor. New arrivals fill jobs to the detriment of the most vulnerable Americans and become a burden on our social services and generous programs to help the poor. Only 12 percent of legal immigrants are selected on the basis of professional qualifications or merit. In countries such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand and others, this figure is close to 60 percent, even to 70, in some cases to 75. The biggest change we will make will increase the share of highly skilled immigrants from 12 to 57 percent, and we would like more.

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Trump Administration could not achieve in Congress to support her plan to abolish the lottery and introduce a “merit and achievement” system, so she took the path of issuing departmental instructions. She was introduced to reporters last week by acting director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services Ken Cuccinelli. He said that starting October 15, immigration authorities will determine whether a foreigner, once granted permanent residence, will become a burden to society. Cuccinelli explained that the expression “burden on society” is in the law, but until now it did not have a precise definition.

Through the rule of public burden, President Trump’s administration reinforces the ideals of self-reliance and personal responsibility, ensures that immigrants can support themselves and succeed in the United States. The rules prevent foreigners who are likely to become a burden on society from coming to the United States or staying here and receiving a green card.

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The main criterion when considering a request for a green card will be the material position of the applicant. Under the new rules, his income must be at least 250 percent higher than the federal poverty line. Currently, this trait for a family of four is set at 25 750 dollars per year. The immigration officer will also take into account the age, health status and education of the foreigner. A significant obstacle to obtaining a green card will now be the fact of receiving social benefits in the past. The administration expects that due to these restrictions approximately 400 of thousands of families per year will be refused.

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At a briefing, one of the journalists asked Ken Cuccinelli whether to remove the bronze plate with verses of Emmy Lazarus, in which America calls all destitute and deprived of fate, from the Statue of Liberty. Cuccinelli replied that the government did not have such plans, and later in an interview with CNN columnist Erin Burnett clarified his answer.

- These verses say:

And give me from the depths of the bottomless
His rogue, his people downtrodden,
Send me the outcast homeless
I give them a candle at the golden door!

"The outcasts, the homeless." This is whose side America should be on. Whose one do you think?

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“Well, the poems, of course, refer to people coming from Europe, where they lived in a society divided into classes, where people were considered outcasts if they did not belong to the right class. And it was written a year after the first federal restriction on the basis of a public burden appeared, which said, I quote: “A person who is unable to take care of himself so as not to burden the public is unacceptable,” or, in the language of my department, cannot count on changing status and obtaining the right to permanent residence. At the same time, Erin, at the same time. And in the same year that the verses appeared on the Statue of Liberty, 1903, another federal law expanding the concept of a public charge passed through Congress.

“I'm talking about when my family came here ... They were small tenants from Scotland.” They had no education, there was nothing. And I'm here now because they were let in, and I am a CNN anchor.

Ken Cuccinelli is not the first employee of the administration to be asked a question about the verses on the Statue of Liberty. At one time, he was answered by senior adviser to the president Stephen Miller, who is considered the main initiator of the tightening of immigration legislation.

I don’t want to go into historical details now, but the poem to which you refer appeared later there, it is not really part of the original plan of the Statue of Liberty.

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Montana Governor, Democratic presidential candidate Steve Bullock, says Ken Cuccinelli should never be led by the immigration office.

Entrusting him with immigration is the same as instructing Putin to ensure the security of elections.

The next step is to grant citizenship by birth. This was explicitly stated by Donald Trump.

We take this issue very seriously. You cross the border, give birth to a child - and you're done, congratulations, the baby is an American citizen. This, frankly, is ridiculous.

According to some human rights organizations and US officials, departmental instruction is a step of dubious legality. They are getting ready to challenge him in court.

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