“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” This powerful line from Emma Lazarus’ poem “The New Colossus” is inscribed on a plaque on the Statue of Liberty’s pedestal. The phrase is often cited as a core element of America’s identity, reflecting this country’s history as a haven for those seeking freedom and opportunity and highlighting the statue’s role as a symbol of welcome and promise.
The pedestal itself was paid for by small donations from over 120,000 Americans through a fundraising campaign by newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer. “It is not a gift from the millionaires of France to the millionaires of America, but a gift of the whole people of France to the whole people of America.” The Statue of Liberty was paid for by small donations from many French citizens, including schoolchildren.
While no one opposes the deportation of properly adjudicated criminal illegal immigrants, this administration is deporting legal immigrants, refugees — even American citizens — to horrific prisons in foreign countries. Under the Rome Statute, these are arguable crimes against humanity.
The America I live in today is not the America I once knew, and it is not the America our loved ones fought and died for. Have Americans forgotten that we are all descendants of immigrants? Has indifference to injustice wiped away our humanity and compassion for others? I pray this isn’t so, for woe betide an unjust nation.
William Plumlee
Ligonier