From the NYT:

Brand New Colossus: A Statue of Liberty Revival Amid Immigration Woes By ELI ROSENBERG MARCH 30, 2017

In another telling sign of how the last presidential election may have shifted the civic landscape, the Statue of Liberty has re-emerged as a potent and resonant symbol amid a polarizing debate about immigration. …

The statue, “Liberty Enlightening the World,” was dedicated in 1886, but was not originally intended to be a symbol of immigration.

With a broken chain at Liberty’s feet, the monument was conceived in France as a celebration of the abolition of slavery and the Union’s victory in the Civil War. But the meaning shifted over time because of the statue’s prominence in New York Harbor at a time when immigrants were arriving at nearby Ellis Island and the addition of the Lazarus poem in 1903.

In other words, the retconning of the Statue of Liberty into the Statue of Immigration is a racist insult to African-Americans, a hijacking by non-blacks of their ancestors’ suffering.

[Comment at Unz.com]