Letter: In the Trump era, Emma Lazarus’ verses no longer fit
(Kathy Willens | AP file photo) The Statue of Liberty wields her torch, Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2019, on a cloudy day in New York. A biographer of poet Emma Lazarus on Wednesday challenged a comment by the acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, explaining that Lazarus' words were her way of urging Americans "to embrace the poor and destitute of all places and origins."
For the past 116 years the Statue of Liberty has been graced by these eloquent words from 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-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
President Trump’s newly proposed immigration policy, unfortunately, will block such people. Therefore, unless his GOP enablers in the Senate finally stand up to him, I think Ms. Lazarus’s poem should be revised, perhaps as follows:
“Give me your elite, your rich,
Your well-educated entrepreneurs yearning to be even richer,
The greedy capitalists of your white population.
Send these, the ambitious offspring of privilege, to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Tom Huckin, Salt Lake City
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