Is this debate about legal vs illegal immigration or white vs brown immigrants?

[Aegon]

Cuccinelli: Statue of Liberty poem refers to people from Europe

Ken Cuccinelli, the acting head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said on Tuesday that the poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty welcoming immigrants to the United States was referring to “people coming from Europe.”

“Well of course that poem referred back to people coming from Europe where they had class-based societies,” Cuccinelli said of the inscription on the statue during an appearance on CNN on Tuesday. “Where people were considered wretched if they weren't in the right class.”

“And it was introduced – it was written one year – one year after the first federal public charge rule was written that says – and I'll quote it, 'Any person unable to take care of himself without becoming a public charge,’ would be inadmissible or in the terms that my agency deals with, they can't do what's called adjusting status, getting a green card becoming legal permanent residence,” he continued

he official’s remarks arrive on the heels of comments he made earlier on Tuesday tweaking the inscription on the statue to defend a new policy rolled out by the Trump administration that makes it easier to reject green cards for those deemed likely to depend on public assistance.

"Give me your tired and your poor who can stand on their own two feet and who will not become a public charge," he said Tuesday morning while responding to a question in an interview with NPR on whether Emma Lazarus's poem, "The New Colossus," was part of the American ethos.

The original poem reads: "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!"

Speaking further about the "public charge" rule on Tuesday, Cuccinelli said that if an immigrant doesn’t “have future prospects of being legal permanent residents without welfare, that will be counted against them.”

“That is the point of the rule. It doesn’t seem too much to ask that we have Americans here who aren’t likely to go on welfare and become public charge,” he continued.

The Statue of Liberty inscription only applies to non-"shithole" countries. Just an FYI. This is a bad look, ain't it?

[onlinebiker]

It really depends who you ask.

And even that thought will be argued.

[The Grand Nudger]

Those public charge rules were explicitly written to keep people like his ancestors out, and nobody at the time was shy about the reason they wanted to do that.

[Brian37]

That was a bullshit pathetic attempt on his part to put lipstick on a pig. That fucker cannot claim that 100% of those who went through Ellis Island moved up to the middle class and became rich. Sure some did. But even with white people born in America, prior to FDR's "New Deal", there was virtually no middle class, even for the people born here. 

This is the same bullshit as "starter job" when talking about fast food. Who the fuck do these morons think are at work when the high school and college kids are at work?

This is about race, and that was more coded bullshit to justify it.

Basically it is the same damned shit white Americans said about the Chinese workers who built the continental railroad. 

If this fucker is going to vilify the poor, then he should be consistent and let poor white Walmart workers in red states starve to death too.

[The Grand Nudger]

Lol, they are. This admins contempt for brown people is only matched by their contempt for The Poors.

Feeding them obvious lies about trade and immigrants while they fleece them and rob them of whatever future they may have had to the benefit of the rich.

[Chad32]

It's all about scapegoating. The rich keep the heat off them by blaming the Other. Whether that's immigrants, or the poor, or whatever other group they can find that can't defend themselves properly. All while 1% of the nation has more money than the other 90%.

[Lek]

This "racism" stuff reminds me of the McCarthy days back in the 1950s.  There were communists everywhere - around every corner, hiding in the cracks, infiltrating our schools and all our institutions.   Today if a minority is adversely effected in any way by a policy, it's labeled racist. Trump hasn't called for lowering our immigration quotas. What if an individual is in favor of even lowering immigration quotas, does that make him a racist?  I swear, every day I read that a liberal has called someone else a racist with no knowledge of whether or not that person actually  is one.  Maybe we'll start blacklisting persons accused of being racist, like they did with the so called communists in the 50s, and destroy their reputations too.  Hollywood types were some of the most effected then, and now they are some of the mostly likely to throw around  the racism accusations.  The word is so wrongly used these days, I don't even pay attention.  If you're changing or implementing new immigration laws or procedures and the majority of immigrants are not white, then the policies are going to effect more nonwhites than whites, whether the policies are racist or not.

As for conditions for detainees, they are bad, but you try walking in the shoes of those trying to deal with the situation; thousands flowing in every day.  They're totally overwhelmed.

[Shell B]

In all fairness, this isn't much of a change. I had to sign paperwork that said I would take care of Tibs if he was unable to take care of himself to prevent him from using public assistance. He's also not allowed social security.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Those public charge rules were explicitly written to keep people like his ancestors out, and nobody at the time was shy about the reason they wanted to do that.

Simply because a rule was racist 100 years ago doesn't mean that same rule isn't racist now.

'No Irish Need Apply'.

Boru

[Rev. Rye]

The Statue of Liberty inscription only applies to non-"shithole" countries. Just an FYI. This is a bad look, ain't it?

Well, at least they're FINALLY being honest about it.