September 12, 2017

"Last month White House adviser Stephen Miller openly repudiated the words at the base of the Statue of Liberty: 'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.' This Emma Lazarus verse is often regarded as the embodiment of U.S. generosity toward migrants and refugees. Schoolchildren learn it, and many critics have invoked it to denounce the Trump administration’s attempts at ethnic cleansing. But while Trump’s xenophobia is extreme, it’s well within the historic mainstream of anti-immigrant policy in this country," argues Kevin Young in a recent article in Counterpunch, "The Huddled Masses Were Never Welcome."