The media needs a serious reality check on immigration, welfare, and the reality of American history

The following is an excerpt from Blaze Media’s daily Capitol Hill Brief email newsletter:

Earlier this week, the Trump administration announced an updated rule to better screen out potential welfare users from immigration applications. Later in the week, the media tried to misrepresent what USCIS acting Director Ken Cucinelli said in defense of that rule.

Cucinelli said that the poem at the base of the Statue of Liberty was written about people coming from class-based societies that didn’t have the social mobility of a free society like the United States. The media and members of the 2020 Democratic field twisted that to say he was saying that the sentiment of the poem only applied to Europeans, which is a lie. You can watch the full video of what the acting director said here.

“Let us now review what has transpired over the past 24 hours or so,” the Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh writes. “A Trump immigration official answered a question on NPR. The media lied about the question and his answer. That official then went on CNN to clarify, and the media lied about his clarification.”

And here’s the thing about that poem on the base of the Statue of Liberty, “The New Colossus”: At the time when it was written, it was widely understood that incoming immigrants should not be a financial burden on the United States. The law even stipulated that the cost of sending public charges back would be “borne by the owners of the vessels in which they came.” But, then again, history is often complex; political smears and platitudes about it are easy.

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