Posted on 08/13/2019 9:57:04 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
"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, the acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said Tuesday, twisting Emma Lazarus' famous words on a bronze plaque at the Statue of Liberty.
Cuccinelli was speaking to NPR's Rachel Martin about a new regulation he announced Monday 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.
The final version of the "public charge" rule is scheduled to be published Wednesday in the Federal Register. A public charge refers to a person who relies on public assistance for help.
On Tuesday, Cuccinelli described the public charge as a "burden on the government." He told NPR the new regulation was a prospective rule, "part of President Trump keeping his promises."
The new rule will go into effect Oct. 15, and only government aid used after that point will be assessed, Cuccinelli said.
Welfare benefits will be just one factor that immigration service officers use to determine an applicant's fate in the United States, in addition to age, health, education and financial status.
"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."
He said the welcoming words from the 1903 plaque at the Statue of Liberty, "Give me your tired, your poor," were put there "at almost the same time" as when the first public charge law was passed in 1882.
Critics have denounced the rule as a sweeping attempt to stem immigration and favor wealthy migrants. The regulation is expected to be challenged by immigration groups in court.
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 told NPR.
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.
Cuccinelli, a former Virginia attorney general, has long held a hard-line stance against immigration and asylum policies. President Trump tapped him to be the acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in June, bringing him to the helm of an agency he had never worked in.
This ain't 1903 anymore Progressives, TIMES CHANGE!
Waaaa.
Libs live Norwegian Socialism. You have to show you earn at least $47,000 annually to immigrate to Norway.
In other words, what has traditionally been immigration policy for every nation on earth for recorded history (where it’s allowed at all.)
I’m still surprised that Ken Cuccinelli got the position.
Almost all of President Trump’s first choices get rejected by congress, or sent through a series of firey hoops for full consideration.
“It is a privilege to become an American, not a right...
Cuccinelli is Definitely NOT Fredo.
See a REAL American with Italian in his blood, Chrissy.
Different times, different situation. What we specifically do not need is illiterate, low IQ, unskilled people of any kind.
We also do not need people of any kind who are here for the money, government or private, instead of coming here to be American.
F**k Emma Lazarus. The Statue didn’t come with that Socialist’s words on it. Even when the plaque was made, it sat INSIDE for decades...until “progressives” put it front and center. Her utopian words are NOT U.S. law. The 1996 Immigration Act is.
Steve Sailer and others have called the Zeroth Amendment. The US as part of the screening of immigrants coming through Ellis Island determined the skills an immigrant had to make sure they would not become a burden on the relief societies of the era.
Believe it or not, back in the day, before the cheetos and he went off the meds . . .
Glenn Beck had a great take on the history of the poem and ties to the statue, and it was NOT about moochers coming to go on the dole.
The idea was that the countries of Europe were CAUSING folks to be tired, poor, huddled masses. Those who worked and strived for a better life were being crushed under tyranny.
Holding the lamp beside the golden door was an appeal to the world, to LOOK HERE, THIS IS HOW IT CAN BE FOR ALL OF YOU TOO. This is the model to follow. Do it our way.
Funds which go to anchor babies or immigrant children, are drawn from payments made by US citizen taxpayers.
Thats what was said to my grandparents. Stand on your own two feet or go home.
“Immigration Chief Ken Cuccinelli: ‘Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor Who Can Stand On Their Own 2 Feet’”
Like there’s something wrong with that? We don’t need more parasites.
You can make it here without welfare if you WORK! That’s the point - you have opportunity.
Anyone who thinks we can absorb and pay welfare for all the worlds poor is absolutely nuts. Although we sort of already do that - it’s called foreign aid - except it seems to not end up in the hands of those who need it and those who need it have to come here to vote rat. What a racket the rats have - screwing the US citizens for their own benefit. And it’s shocking how many US citizens agree with the rats.
America is all about rights - usually government/leftist funded ones.
No one EVER talks about responsibility.
The poor huddled masses coming across the southern border may not be so poor after all. Swiss journalist Urs Gehriger recently visited African migrants who breached the border and hung out on the streets of San Antonio, Texas, waiting to go elsewhere in the country, and he met hostility from people who didnt want to share details about their experiences, conflicted each other, and had rolls of $100 bills. In a recording played on Fox News, Gehriger asks a migrant from Congo how she got to America. She refused to say.
As Gehriger continued to ask simple questions, he said they backtracked and were not answering at all. They wouldnt tell me anything about how they got here, and then they started to get aggressive and they were contradicting each other, he told Laura Ingraham. One said they ran through the forest, and another said no, there was no forest, and they were actually arguing among themselves, Gehriger said. He said they started to get aggressive after questions about money and help.
Gehriger believes the illegals were coached on giving answers to authorities. I had the impression that somebody told them not to speak about it, and acting like now were here, you have to help us, give us money. What I found from an aid worker there, they actually do have money. Quite a few of them, because he spotted them under a tree, right in front of the shelter, counting a roll of money with hundred dollar bills, Gehriger told Ingraham. Hundreds of migrants Congo and Angola were transported to San Antonio the week before, and city officials say they received no warning from the feds that they were coming. KENS published a story showing dozens of people milling around downtown, saying they arrived at the southern U.S. border by way of Ecuador. ETC...
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Africans jump the border----seen holding wads of 100 dollar bills?
Its likely their Third World govt's are paying the freight b/c the govt honchos cash in bigtime from remittances of the US gravy train tax dollars.
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