Donald Trump’s presidential advisor Stephen Miller, who is in charge of ICE’s cruel actions, is among those who provide this revisionist history about the Statue. In 2017, he sniveled, “...the Statue of Liberty is a symbol of American liberty lighting the world. The poem that you’re referring to was added later [and] is not actually part of the original Statue of Liberty.”
That same year, the same opinion came from the late Rush Limbaugh. On the radio, Limbaugh pontificated,
...the Statue of Liberty and the Emma Lazarus poem is a great illustration of how immigration policy and the United States/Statue of Liberty has become bastardized. “Give us your tired, your poor” and so forth literally has nothing to do with the purpose of the United States.In fact, it’s never been on the Statue. It is inside the pedestal. It was only put there when they put a museum in there. It was not part of the original Statue of Liberty. It was not part of the design. The statue was a gift to the United States from the people of France as a beacon of freedom and liberty. It’s a testament to our Founding and our Founding Fathers, and this Emma Lazarus poem had nothing to do with it. It had nothing whatsoever to do with it!The poem was put in the pedestal museum because it was used as part of the fundraising for the pedestal. It’s been co-opted by immigration activists and leftists to actually [split infinitive 😣] now represent U.S. immigration policy, which it isn’t.
Actually, the Statue was associated with immigration at least as early as its opening ceremony in 1886 — seventeen years prior to the addition of Emma Lazarus’s poem. At the ceremony, the U.S. President of the time, Grover Cleveland, gave a speech to dedicate it. In the dedication, he alluded to immigration. And the term that the man used is noteworthy.
Anti-immigrationists frequently employ the term open borders as a pejorative. Yet President Cleveland spoke glowingly of how the Statue of Liberty stands before “the open gates of America.”
I also appreciate how President Cleveland praised Liberty as the USA’s own pagan goddess, a much better object of worship. In his words,
We are not here to day to bow before the representation of a fierce and war-like god, filled with wrath and vengeance, but we joyously contemplate instead, our own deity keeping watch and ward before the open gates of America, and greater than all that have been celebrated in ancient song. Instead of grasping in her hand thunderbolts of terror and of death, she holds aloft the light which illumines the way to man’s enfranchisement.We will not forget that Liberty has here made her home; nor shall her chosen altar be neglected. Willing votaries will constantly keep alive its fires, and these shall gleam upon the shores of our sister republic in the East [France]. Reflected thence and joined with answering rays, a stream of light shall pierce the darkness of ignorance and man’s oppression, until liberty enlightens the world [boldface added].
Yes, Liberty has always stood for the application of her principles, foremost of which is the liberty to seek new opportunities in new lands. She stood for liberalized immigration at her opening ceremony. May she continue to stand for it today.
