Lady Liberty: "Give Me Your Rich and Famous"

“Give me your tired and your poor who can stand on their own two feet

and who will not become a public charge,”

– Ken Cuccinelli, Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration

Ken Cuccinelli, former Virginia attorney general and Trump's choice for acting director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, has long held a hard-line stance against immigration and asylum policies. President Trump tapped him in June, bringing him to the helm of an agency he had never worked in.

Cuccinelli announced a new regulation Monday (August 12, 2019) that targets legal immigration. The rule denies green cards and visas to immigrants if they use – or are deemed likely to need – federal, state and local government benefits including food stamps, housing vouchers and Medicaid. The change stands to impact hundreds of thousands of immigrants who come to the United States legally every year.

"If they don't have future prospects of being legal permanent residents without welfare, that will be counted against them," Cuccinelli said.

"All immigrants who can stand on their own two feet, self-sufficient, pull themselves up by their bootstraps," would be welcome, he added.

Asked if that changes the definition of the American Dream, Cuccinelli said, "No one has a right to become an American who isn't born here as an American."

Then he clarified. "It is a privilege to become an American, not a right for anybody who is not already an American citizen, that's what I was referring to … It does not change what makes America exceptional. We invite people to come here and join us as a privilege.”

In speaking about the original words on the Statue of Liberty, Cuccinelli said the language on the 1903 plaque by Emma Lazarus – “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 – must now also mean as long as you can stand “on your own two feet.”

Of course, many understand this charge to be a sweeping attempt to stem immigration and favor wealthy migrants. Leon Fresco, a former deputy assistant attorney general in the Obama administration, said the case could wind up in the U.S. Supreme Court.

"I also expect lawsuits from individuals who say that, at the end of the day, if Congress provided certain benefits to be accessible by certain groups of immigrants, that meant that they did not want them then banned under the public charge rule," Fresco said.

Rumors that the Trump administration was considering the regulation already led to a chilling effect on immigrants looking to put down roots through legal and permanent residency. Public health and social service providers report that immigrants are worried about seeking medical and housing aid for themselves and their children, who may be U.S. citizens.

“Under this rule, children will go hungry; families will go without medical care. I am committed to defending all of New York’s communities, which is why I intend to sue the Trump Administration over this egregious rule,” New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) said in a statement.

CBS White House correspondent Weijia Jiang tweeted: “My dad came to the US with $40. My mom and I followed with $0. We were tired. We were poor. But this beautiful country helped us become Americans.”

"The law on immigration and welfare is clear: When a person becomes

a legal permanent resident of the United States, he or she is

required to pay taxes but they are ineligible to receive

almost any welfare benefits until they have resided in

the country for at least five years."

-- Congressional Research Service

With his attack on immigration, I doubt if Cuccinelli knows much at all about welfare. Allow me to share some key facts …

The vast majority of Americans receiving one of the six major forms of government assistance are children below the age of 18.

Nearly half of all children in the U.S.—46.7 percent—received some form of government assistance at some point during 2012. The 2015 report by the U.S. Census Bureau also shows that children participate for longer durations in these programs than adults. From 2009 to 2012, more than half of all children who received government assistance did so for somewhere between 37 and 48 months.

So when one imagines a welfare recipient, that person should not be an adult sitting on a couch before a television. That person should be a child in need.

The vast majority of people enrolled in Medicaid—77 percent—were in a household where at least one adult was employed (full- or part-time).

This data analysis was performed by the Kaiser Family Foundation in 2015. A full 37 million enrollees, more than three in five, were members of households with at least one full-time worker.

On average 39 percent of women receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children benefits were also employed. $152.8 billion is spent each year in the United States on welfare programs to support working families with low wages. 52 percent of fast food workers with at least one family member rely on at least one poverty assistance program.

Though rates of participation are higher among people of color, white people comprise the greatest number of recipients when measured by race.

Given the population of the U.S. in 2012 and the annual rate of participation by race reported by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2015, about 35 million white people participated in one of the six major government assistance programs that year. That's about 11 million more than the 24 million Hispanics and Latinos who participated and considerably more than the 20 million black people who received government aid.

In fact, most white people receiving benefits are enrolled in Medicaid. According to an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 42 percent of non-elderly Medicaid enrollees in 2015 were white. However, U.S. Department of Agriculture data for 2013 shows that the largest racial group participating in SNAP is also white people, at more than 40 percent.

Spending on the Social Safety Net is just 10 Percent of the federal budget.

Many Republicans have claimed that social services expenditures are out of control and crippling the federal budget, but these programs accounted for just 10 percent of federal spending in 2015.

The number of families receiving welfare has dropped.

Contrary to President Trump's claims about welfare, far fewer families in need receive support from this program today than did when welfare reform was enacted in 1996. The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) reported in 2016 that since welfare reform was enacted and Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) was replaced by TANF, the program has served progressively fewer families.

Many receiving government assistance are short-term recipients.

While most people who received government assistance between 2009 and 2012 were long-term participants, about a third were short-term participants who received aid for a year or less, according to a 2015 U.S. Census Bureau report.

A myth: “Welfare makes people lazy.”

Derek Thompson, staff writer for The Atlantic, says, “Welfare isn’t just a moral imperative to raise the living standards of the poor. It’s also a critical investment in the health and future careers of low-income kids.” Government aid relieves low-income children of the psychological and physiological stresses that get in the way of embracing those very ideals. Thompson continues: “Welfare is so much more than a substitute for a paycheck. It is a remedy for the myriad burdens of childhood poverty, which give children the opportunity to become exactly the sort of healthy and striving adults celebrated by both political parties.”

From Thompson's research about “busting the myth” ...

“Many economists have for decades argued that this orthodoxy is simply wrong—that wisely designed anti-poverty programs, like the Earned Income Tax Credit, actually increase labor participation. And now, across the world, a fleet of studies are converging on the consensus that even radical welfare programs—including basic-income programs and what are called conditional cash transfers—don’t make people any less productive …

“Studies have found that such programs can increase working hours and earnings, particularly when the beneficiaries are required to attend classes that teach specific trades or general business skills.

“One of the latest studies on the subject found that Medicaid has 'little if any' impact on employment or work hours. In research based in Canada and the U.S., the economist Ioana Marinescu at the University of Pennsylvania has found that even when basic-income programs do reduce working hours, adults don’t typically stay home to, say, play video games; instead, they often use the extra cash to go back to school or hold out for a more desirable job …

“American adults whose families had access to prenatal coverage under Medicaid have lower rates of obesity, higher rates of high-school graduation, and higher incomes as adults than those from similar households in states without Medicaid, according to a 2015 paper from the economists Sarah Miller and Laura R. Wherry. Another paper found that children covered by Medicaid expansions went on to earn higher wages and require less welfare assistance as adults.”

(Derek Thompson. “Busting the Myth of ‘Welfare Makes People Lazy.’”

The Atlantic. March 8, 2018.)

The American Dream may be a privilege; however, it is evident some close-minded government officials have no intention of offering this privilege to those without health, resources, and “better ingredients” to add to the melting pot – constituents of immigration who would assimilate instantly in a privileged, white world.

Emma Lazarus – the author of “The New Colossus” (1883), the poem that adorns the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty – did not intend the inspiring verse to mean “send us your best.” Instead, her poem clearly denotes “send us those who will most appreciate liberty, opportunity, and plenty.” The verse continues with a denial of nationalist narratives that are based on historical claims of ancient possession: “Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!”

The statue, itself, is not meant to be standing guard, like the forbidding, martial masculinity of the Colossus of Rhodes, but instead to be lighting the harbor as the “Mother of Exiles” – a gendered woman who cries out with her “silent lips” symbolically extolling the liberal values of hospitality, diversity, and inclusion. The statue was the first great U.S. landmark that immigrants arriving in the United States would see – a beacon of hope for a better life.

For Emma Lazarus, Bartholdi’s statue was not a neoclassical monument to shared Franco-American values, but a defiant symbol of American exceptionalism steeped in Hebraic values. Lazarus was involved in charitable work for refugees. She began to advocate on behalf of indigent Jewish immigrants.

At Ward's Island, Lazarus worked as an aide for Jewish immigrants who had been detained by Castle Garden immigration officials. She was deeply moved by the plight of the Russian Jews she met there and these experiences influenced her writing. In 1883, she founded the Society for the Improvement and Colonization of East European Jews. She also argued for the creation of a Jewish homeland

This “public charge” idea is the latest bigoted move by Ken Cuccinelli, who has sought to prohibit undocumented immigrants from attending universities, to repeal birthright citizenship, and to force employees to speak English in the workplace.

What kind of man is Cuccinelli? He also opposes homosexuality while describing homosexual acts as "against nature and are harmful to society." He rejects the scientific consensus on climate change, and he has been a strong advocate of the abstinence-only sex education programs with state funding.

During the Virginia Gubernatorial campaign (2013), Cuccinelli scored a miserable 10 (of 14) “Mostly False” claims in PolitiFact poling. Consider this score against Virginia senate candidate Democrat Tim Kaine’s average at 3.58.

Ken Cuccinelli is an anti-immigrant extremist who once compared immigration to pest control and has a history of anti-Muslim and anti-LGBT positions. Over the years, he has clearly demonstrated his loathing as a state senator and attorney general. As the head of the Senate Conservatives Fund (2015), Cuccinelli told talk show host Steve Deace that America is being “invaded” by immigrants “one person at a time” – language that Trump has used to justify the detention of refugees and families in inhumane conditions at the border.

The Mother of Exiles, the enduring symbol of American freedom and liberty to immigrants from all nations, clearly makes no distinction about the financial independence of those seeking asylum. Lady Liberty, the statue in New York harbor, found her meaningful voice because of the Emma Lazarus's sonnet, "The New Colossus," written in its honor.

Especially in the 1920s, when the United States began to restrict immigration, the words of Lazarus took on much deeper meaning. The mother's plea to “give me the wretched refuse of your teeming shore” is a poignant charge for humanity, not for exclusion. To twist the representation of this important figure is unthinkable. Her torch is a symbol of enlightenment. It lights the way to freedom showing all the path to liberty. Even the statue's official name represents her most important representation – "Liberty Enlightening the World.”