Since 1886 a gigantic 151-foot statue, standing 305 feet tall mounted on its pedestal, has remained in New York Harbor as a symbol of the liberty we hold dear in America. It was a gift of friendship from the people of France, who contributed funds for it. It was the brainchild of a French historian named Edouard de Laboulaye. [I don’t know about you, but I can’t say that five times fast.]  Laboulaye proposed his idea in 1865. In 1875 a sculptor by the name of Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi [another very French name] began overseeing the massive project. [Although I took French in high school, my French is pretty much limited to a few dialogue sentences, such as: Parlez-vous francais? Tu est tres gentil. Vous etes tres jolie.]

To build the statue, copper sheets were hammered by hand to form the shape. Four huge steel supports were placed beneath them. Since it weighed a massive 225 tons when completed, it was taken apart before being shipped to New York City. The pedestal was built on the island on which it now stands and was designed by an American architect. “The Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World” was dedicated on October 28, 1886.

Estimated Reading Time – 12 minutes

This statue representing a woman holds a 29-foot torch, raised high in the woman’s right hand. In her left hand she holds a tablet that reads “July 4, 1776”—the date the Declaration of Independence was adopted. At the entrance of the pedestal on which she stands is a plaque inscribed with a poem written by Emma Lazarus. Visitors may take an elevator or stairway to reach the observation deck located in the pedestal. Those who wish to go all the way up to the woman’s crown may climb a spiral staircase. I turned to an article on the britannica.com website to find all of the above information.

Then I read a Washington Post article dated May 23, 2019, called “The Statue of Liberty was created to celebrate freed slaves, not immigrants, its new museum recounts.” The article states that Laboulaye was an authority on the U.S. Constitution. At the end of the American Civil War he presided over a committee that raised money to help recently freed slaves. According to the article, Laboulaye invited French abolitionists to a meeting in his summer home, where they discussed fashioning a gift to pay tribute to the freeing of the American slaves. In an early mock-up by Bartholdi, “Lady Liberty” (as she is often called) held broken chains in her left hand. The final design has Lady Liberty holding the tablet in her left hand, and broken chains are rather inconspicuous at her feet.

Emma Lazarus’ poem called “The New Colossus,” which can be read in its entirety in the britannica.com article, concludes with these words:

“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!”

I found some interesting insight into Emma Lazarus, provided in an article by the American Jewish Historical Society. Emma wrote her famous poem, “The New Colossus,” in 1883. She had been asked to write a poem to help raise funds for the Lady Liberty pedestal. She was very involved in upholding Jewish immigrants fleeing Russia. Emma died in 1887 at age 38. The plaque inscribed with her poem was not mounted at the entrance to the pedestal until 1903.

It seems apparent to me, judging from Emma’s background and the lyrics of her poem, that to her the statue was about immigrants seeking freedom. Perhaps it meant that to others, even at its inception. The fact that the tablet Lady Liberty holds contains the date of the Declaration of Independence, rather than the date of the Emancipation Proclamation, adds more intrigue as to the statue’s original meaning.

Today Lady Liberty is commonly thought of as welcoming to America those wishing to escape persecution and tyranny. However, the policies determining who will be allowed to enter America have changed many times since the founding of our nation. I discovered an interesting timeline on the history of America’s immigration policies in an article on the history.com website. I will paraphrase the information. There was other legislation changing the years of residency required, etc. These are just some of the highlights.

The History of American Immigration Policies

January, 1776

Thomas Paine wrote, “This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe.” [According to some information in a britannica.com article, Thomas Paine was an extremely influential American writer who was a native of England and came to America on the recommendation of Benjamin Franklin. Nothing he had attempted in England had been successful. He had assisted his father in corset making at 13, then tried other jobs without success. His final job before leaving England for America was hunting for smugglers and collecting excise taxes on liquor and tobacco. His pay was not enough to cover his living expenses, but he used a portion of his pay to buy books and scientific equipment. After coming to America, by the end of the American Revolution he found himself poor again.  He had refused to take any profit from his patriotic writings, so that they could have a wide circulation. But his subsequent petitions for financial help brought him funds from Pennsylvania and a farm in New York.]

March, 1790

The Naturalization Act of 1790 permitted any “free white person” of “good character” who had been residing in the U.S. for two years or more to make application to become a citizen. [Legislation clearly changing the “free white person” clause didn’t come until 1952 and 1965.]

1815

A burst of immigrants from Western Europe—many of them Irish or German.

1819

The Steerage Act of 1819 required better conditions on the ships arriving in the U.S. and required captains to give information on the ethnicity of their passengers.

1849

An anti-immigrant political party, called the Know-Nothing Party, was formed in retaliation for the large number of German and Irish immigrants. [I was curious about this. I again turned to britannica.com for some insight. The Protestants who already lived in the U.S. feared that their economic and political security was threatened by Roman Catholic immigrants. Members of the organization were to keep their organization clandestine, so they were to answer that they knew nothing when asked about their organization. Their party fell apart due to an anti-slavery/pro-slavery split.]

1875

After the Civil War, some states made their own immigration laws. But the Supreme Court decided it was the federal government’s job to pass immigration laws and enforce them.

1880-1920

In a period of rapid industrial and urban growth, 20 million immigrants came to the U.S. They were mostly from Europe and included 4 million Italians and 2 million Jews.

1882

Starting in the 1850s, a steady stream of Chinese workers began coming to America. In 1882 The Chinese Exclusion Act kept the Chinese from emigrating to the U.S. Although the U.S. population only consisted of .002 percent Chinese immigrants, white workers felt they were responsible for low wages.

1891

The Immigration Act of 1891 created a federal office of immigration and inspectors posted at the main ports of entry. It also eliminated the entry of polygamists, certain types of criminals, and people with sicknesses or diseases.

June, 1892

The immigration station known as Ellis Island was opened in New York Harbor. Between 1892 and 1954, over 12 million immigrants passed through Ellis Island.

February, 1907

The U.S. and Japan signed the Gentleman’s Agreement, wherein Japan agreed to only allow certain types of business and professional men to emigrate to the U.S.  Californians feared that Japanese immigrants who were farm workers could affect farming job openings and wages.

1917

The Immigration Act of 1917 blocked immigration from the majority of Asian countries and included requiring immigrants to be literate.

May, 1924

The Immigration Act of 1924 established immigration quotas for nationalities. Immigration visas were limited to 2% of the number of people counted in a specific nationality in the 1890 census. Immigrants from Asia were barred. Those from the Philippines, then a U.S. colony, were the exception.

1924

The U.S. Border Patrol was founded to catch illegal immigrants crossing the U.S. border through Canada and Mexico. Many were Asians, who had been banned from entry by the Immigration Act of 1924.

1942

Due to a shortage of American workers during World War II, the Bracero Program was established to let Mexican farm workers enter the U.S. on a temporary basis. This program continued until 1964.

1948

After World War II, a new law outlined America’s first refugee and resettlement plan, in order to establish a way to deal with the Europeans wanting to live in the U.S. permanently.

1952

The exclusion of Asian immigrants came to an end by means of the McCarran-Walter Act.

1956-1957

About 38,000 immigrants from Hungary were allowed to enter the U.S. after an unsuccessful uprising against the Soviet Union. More than 3 million refugees were permitted to enter the U.S. during the Cold War. [The Cold War was a rivalry between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., along with their allies, starting in 1947 and continuing until the dismantling of the U.S.S.R. in 1991.]

1960-1962

About 14,000 unaccompanied children escaped Cuba, which was under Fidel Castro’s rule. They came to the U.S. during Operation Peter Pan, a clandestine program combating Communism.

1965

The American immigration system was renovated by The Immigration and Nationality Act. It eliminated the nationality quota system. Instead, a seven-category preference plan was initiated, which emphasized  reunification of families and skills of the immigrants. In the five years following the renovation, immigrants from war-torn areas of Asia, such as Vietnam and Cambodia, multiplied more than four times.

1986

President Reagan signed the Simpson-Mazzoli Act, giving amnesty to over 3 million immigrants residing in the U.S. illegally.

2001

The proposed “DREAM” Act (Development, Relief, and Education of Alien Minors), designed to make a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants whose parents brought them to the U.S. as children,  did not pass.

2012

President Obama signed “DACA,” Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. It kept “Dreamers” from being deported, but it didn’t give them a path to becoming citizens.

2017

Two executive orders were signed by President Trump that were an attempt to cut travel and immigration from six countries that had a Muslim majority, and also North Korea and Venezuela. These orders were challenged in state courts, as well as federal courts. In April of 2018 the travel ban on the Muslim country of Chad was cancelled.  In June the Supreme Court confirmed the travel restrictions on the other seven nations.

The history.com timeline article ended with 2018. We can see some progress in moving away from some of the prejudices involved in the immigration system in 1965, when the Immigration and Nationality Act came into being.

Our Current Immigration Situation

We all know that when President Biden took over in 2020 he permitted huge numbers of people to cross our borders unvetted. Many were bussed or flown to various parts of the country. Faced with the dangers of very violent gang members, drug dealers, human traffickers, potential terrorists and spies and enemy soldiers, and just plain illegal entries, President Trump has attempted to deport illegal aliens. Dangerous gang members were taken to a tough El Salvador prison. Other immigrants were offered $1,000, a free flight home, and an opportunity to apply to enter legally later, if they self-deported. Seeing the current situation, very few potential immigrants are currently attempting to cross the borders into our country. However, “sanctuary cities” are resisting the deportation policies, and there are many who disagree with the handling of this out-of-control immigration situation. Protests have broken out, some of them very violent. We in this country have the right to peaceful protests, but violence is not acceptable.

President Trump has also placed more travel bans recently. A BBC article of June 5, 2025, lists some reasons: national security, failure to take back “removable nationals” [deportable aliens], exploitation of the visa system, and overstaying visas.  I once heard President Trump say that some nations refuse to give adequate information regarding those traveling from their country to ours. That poses a national security threat.

My Own Family’s Immigration History

Three of my own four grandparents were born in foreign lands. My paternal grandfather was a native of Norway. He came over to the U.S. at age 15 or 16. (I thought it was 15, and someone else thought it was 16.)  It must have been around 1910. The parents of his bride (my grandmother) also came over from Norway. I believe she was the first of her siblings born in America. My maternal grandparents were both Germans living in Russia before coming to America.

I regret that I never thought to ask my paternal grandfather, or even my dad, why my grandfather decided to emigrate from Norway to America. After looking at several articles about Norwegians immigrating to America, it seems that a shortage of farm land in Norway may have played a role. The plentiful land in America may have lured many. I do know Grandpa was always very interested in politics. I would say he greatly valued the freedoms of America. He knew his native country was occupied by the Nazis during World War II. Grandpa and Grandma moved to the northwest and had a farm. In his later years, Grandpa also worked in a paper mill.

My maternal grandparents, who came from Russia, went to Canada before coming to the U.S. My grandmother’s biological mother died in Russia before she and her sister boarded a ship to North America with their father. When their father remarried, 11 more children were born into the family.

How did the Germans end up in Russia, and why did they leave? An article on the library.ndsu.edu website has the answers. Before the unification of Germany, many Germans were discouraged due to religious, political, and economic problems they experienced. Then in 1763 the Russian Czarina Catherine the Great, who was once a German princess, made the Germans an alluring offer. If they decided to emigrate to Russia, they would have free farmland and could rule themselves. But after the Russians were defeated in the Crimean war, they decided to reform their government. They felt that the autonomy of the Germans who had come to live in Russia stood in the way. In 1871, the Germans’ autonomy was withdrawn. The 1870s saw a stream of the Germans emigrating from Russia to Canada, the U.S., and South America.

My mother spoke no English when she first started school. She told me that one day she ran all the way home from school, excited to tell her mother she had learned to say the English words “ironing board” to replace their German way of saying it. (My German is even worse than my French. I know that “ich liebe dich” means “I love you.” Actually, my mom and her German-speaking relatives often seemed to find it quite convenient that their children didn’t understand the German language. They could discuss things they didn’t wish their children to hear.)  Mom’s family worked hard. Though her dad was a cabinet maker, when Mom was young she joined some relatives who stayed in little shacks during the summer to pick hops. It brought in a little much-needed extra income.

Whom Should We Allow “Lady Liberty” to invite in?

Immigration is a very contentious topic these days. I believe that, if we are to be a strong nation, we must be careful whom we allow “Lady Liberty” to invite into our nation. Here are some things I believe should be required of those who come to our country to seek citizenship:

1. They must love our Constitution and the system of justice we have established.
2. They must be willing to work to support themselves.
3. They must learn to speak English well, so that we can be a unified people and they can be capable of voting wisely.
4. They must be of good character.
5. They must come in through legal means.

Another Symbol of Liberty

As I prepared this article, I couldn’t help remembering a song I became familiar with years ago. It’s called “Statue of Liberty.” It speaks of the statue in New York Harbor and compares the fact that it symbolizes political freedom to the fact that the cross of Jesus symbolizes spiritual freedom. Because Jesus died to pay for our sins, we can be set free from the penalty of our sins and from spiritual darkness if only we repent of our sins and believe. You can hear the song by clicking on the video below.

YouTube – Statue of Liberty – Uploaded by Brentwood Benson [4:00]