Jumping To Conclusions

Concerning the Haitian refugees who recently came ashore in Flordia, Kathleen Park writes that "America cannot house, feed, clothe and educate every unhappy human being from every crummy country or America will sink."

I don't know if this is true, and, for that matter, I don't think that every poor person in the world is planning to come to the United States. But, if we take Park's statement as being true, let's end the hypocrisy.

To be true and consistent, all those who advocate sending the Haitians back to Haiti should also be advocating the following be removed from the base of the Statue of Liberty:

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-tost to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

You can't have it both ways. Either we're the United States -- the country of immigrants, the country of the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the land of the tempest-tost -- or we're not.