Does the Lady in the harbor matter any more?

I wrote this July 31, 2010 and four years later, the question still remains:

Does the Lady in the harbor matter any more?

         The Statue of Liberty, gift from the people of France to the people of the United States, symbol of hope and liberty to those seeking freedom from oppression.  Stories are told and written of immigrants shedding tears of joy at seeing the Statue after a long journey on the sea.  Even those who never passed by the Lady in the harbor still know that she represents the chance for a life of opportunity.  She stands as a welcome, not to the rich and famous, but to the poor and desperate:

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. "Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she With silent lips. "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!"
Emma Lazarus

         We are now engaged in a great debate, a great battle, over what to do about the immigrants who did not take the necessary steps to get permission to enter this country.  How to find them and send them back to their own countries.  Arizona has attempted what can only be described as legalized racial profiling to stop and arrest anyone who cannot prove the right, whether by birth or paperwork, to live in this country.

         How easily we forget that not only are we a nation of immigrants, but the first settlers were also illegal immigrants.  They may have had permission from their governments, in the form of royal charters, but their governments neither owned nor had any legal authority to colonize or allow to be colonized any land in North and/or South America.

         How sad that the Lady in the harbor, once a symbol to the world that here in the United States all are welcome, is now just an old statue whose meaning is fading.  In 1986 for the Statue's Centennial anniversary, the Statue under went a restoration.  
       
         Now in 2010, let her undergo a new restoration, let us stand together with the Lady in the harbor to remind the world, our own federal, state and local governments as well as those citizens who wish to pursue anti-immigration laws that the torch is still lit and the Statue of Liberty still welcomes ALL to our country.