President Donald Trump was all set to attend Thursday's opening of the new Statue of Liberty Museum, a $100 million 26,000 square foot enterprise that will celebrate and educate Americans and visitors from all around the world on the ideals of freedom, liberty, and welcoming immigrants.
"Liberty Enlightening the World," the Statue's official name, "stands for good things: democracy, freedom, liberty, inclusion," says Stephen Briganti, president and CEO of the foundation in charge of the Museum, France 24 reports. "It stands for all those things and so many more."
The Secret Service "swarmed" Liberty Island last week to prepare for President's Trump's attendance at the opening ceremony Thursday.
Instead, "President Trump is ditching Thursday’s opening of the Statue of Liberty Museum because he doesn’t want to hobnob with New York Dems, opting instead to stick with a more receptive right-wing crowd in the Rose Garden at the unveiling of a new immigration plan," the New York Daily News reports.
Trump not wanting to "hobnob" with Democrats is likely just one of several reasons he's canceled plans to visit in his own hometown.
Slate calls the Museum "a quiet paean to America’s embrace of immigrants."
Thursday afternoon Trump will unveil his new immigration program, which is actually Jared Kushner's new immigration program. And it's, unsurprisingly, designed to further reduce immigration from asylum seekers and those looking to unite with their families, and instead focus on what Trump calls a "merit" system, based on skills, education, and “patriotic assimilation.”
It's likely DOA as even Republicans are opposed to it, even though it was "aimed at unifying congressional Republicans on the issue," as CNN reports.
One major problem: Trump's new immigration program does not even address DACA, and even Republicans want that critical issue resolved.
But could there be a more stark contrast on this issue today than a celebration of America's embrace of immigrants on an island by the President's hometown, and President Trump unveiling a program designed to all but end immigration into the U.S. from "your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free"?