[xyzzyz]

20 years after that poem was affixed to the Statue of Liberty, a new immigration law was passed that practically banned almost all immigration. It was passed, because the American population rejected the immigration policy that that poem represented.

I don't think that 120 years later, bringing up that poem is meant to evoke some kind of universal American spirit. This is not what Americans actually believed back then, and it's not what Americans believe today. That poem has been rejected at the ballot box.