Ken Cuccinelli, the acting director of Citizenship & Immigration Services, deployed poetic license yesterday in defense of the Trump Administration's proposed new regulations restricting the issuance of Green Cards on the basis of using government programs such as Medicaid and food stamps. During an interview with NPR, Cuccinelli revised Emma Lazarus' famous line from her poem "The New Colossus": " "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." Cuccinelli's interpretation reads, "Give me your tired and your poor who can stand on their own two feet and who will not become a public charge."
Cuccinelli, the former Virginia Attorney General and unsuccessful GOP gubernatorial candidate in 2013, was appointed to his current position by President Trump in June. He wasn't content merely to rewrite Lazarus' poem. Cuccinelli changed its meaning altogether. When challenged on CNN by Erin Burnett as his interpretation of the poem, Cuccinelli replied, “Well, of course that poem was referring back to people coming from Europe where they had class-based societies.”
When Cuccinelli says Europe he means white, not brown skinned people from Africa, Latin America or the Middle East. Cuccinelli ought to have his poetic license revoked.
Let us remember this new rule is directed at people who came to the United States legally. They have broken no laws. So now the Trump Administration is trying to make the use of Medicaid and food stamps a criminal act.
At this hour #CuccinelliResign is trending on Twitter. This is highly unlikely. Cuccinelli isn't saying anything with which President Trump disagrees. In the unlikely event Cuccinelli were to resign then Trump would simply appoint someone else with the same point of view and not afraid to express it. So long as the Trump Administration is in office and isn't reigned in by the courts they will have effectively have extinguished the lamp beside the golden door.
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