Ken Cuccinelli

Ken Cuccinelli in 2012.

Give me your tired and your poor who can stand on their own two feet and who will not become a public charge.

Kenneth Thomas Cuccinelli II (born July 30, 1968) is an American lawyer and politician who served as the Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security from 2019 to 2021. A member of the Republican Party, he also served as the Principal Deputy and Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and was Attorney General of Virginia from 2010 to 2014.

He previously served in the Virginia Senate, representing the 37th district in Fairfax County from 2002 until 2010. Cuccinelli was the Republican nominee for Governor of Virginia in the 2013 Virginia gubernatorial election, losing to the Democratic nominee, Terry McAuliffe.

Quotes

• What you may not know is that last year, in its finite wisdom, the D.C. City Council passed a new law, or a triumph of animal rights over human health, where those pest control people you suggested they bring in aren’t allowed to kill the rats. They have to relocate the rats and not only that — that’s actually not the worst part — they cannot break up the families of the rats. Now, as actual experts in pest control will tell you, if you don’t move an animal at least 25 miles, it’ll come back. And so what’s the solution to that? Well, cross a river....

  Anyway, it is worse than our immigration policy — you can’t break up rat families. Or raccoons or all the rest and you can’t even kill them. It’s unbelievable.

  • 2012, on the The Morning Majority show on WMAL-FM (Kessler, Glenn (October 14, 2013). "Did Cuccinelli compare immigration policy to exterminating rats?". The Washington Post. ; Wing, Nick (July 26, 2013). "Ken Cuccinelli Once Compared Immigration Policy To Pest Control, Exterminating Rats". HuffPost. )

• Article 1, Section 10 of the Constitution, the third paragraph, lists some things that the states can do and under certain circumstances. And it says that no state shall enter into war without the permission of Congress unless they are actually invaded. Well, here it comes. And there are several interesting aspects of that.

  First of all, we’ve been being invaded for a long time and so the border states clearly qualify here to utilize this power themselves. And what’s interesting is they don’t need anyone’s permission. They can do it themselves. And because they’re acting under war powers, there’s no due process. They can literally just line their National Guard up with, presumably with riot gear like they would if they had a civil disturbance and turn people back at the border. Literally, you don’t have to keep them, no catch and release, no nothing. You just point them back across the river and let them swim for it. Maybe you have a little courtesy shuttle and drive them over and leave them there. And the states can do that, interestingly enough, and the federal government can’t. But it really becomes a question of do they want to utilize this power or not....

  When someone comes across your border without your permission, it’s an invasion. Their purpose here is to violate the border, to violate our sovereignty, for their own purposes. That’s an invasion. And here, I don’t think with the caravan it’s even debatable because you’ve got an entire group that’s organized itself to come into the country.

  • October 23, 2018, to Breitbart News Daily on SiriusXM ("Exclusive–Ken Cuccinelli: States Can Stop Migrant Caravan ‘Invasion’ with Constitutional ‘War Powers’". Breitbart News. October 23, 2018. ; Rose, Joel (June 10, 2019). "Trump Administration Taps Hard-Liner Cuccinelli For Top Immigration Job". NPR. ; Hananoki, Eric (May 23, 2019). "Potential DHS senior official Ken Cuccinelli suggested that states invoke “war powers” to turn back migrant “invasion”". Media Matters for America. )

• Give me your tired and your poor who can stand on their own two feet and who will not become a public charge....No one has a right to become an American who isn't born here as an American.
  • August 13, 2019, to NPR's Rachel Martin on Morning Edition (Ingber, Sasha (August 13, 2019). "Immigration Chief: 'Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor Who Can Stand On Their Own 2 Feet'". NPR. Retrieved on August 13, 2019. ; Itkowitz, Colby (August 13, 2019). "‘Who can stand on their own two feet’: Ken Cuccinelli edits famous Statue of Liberty poem". The Washington Post. Retrieved on August 13, 2019. ; Helmore, Edward (August 13, 2019). "Trump official: Statue of Liberty poem should mean 'poor who can stand on own two feet'". The Guardian. Retrieved on August 13, 2019. )

Quotes about Cuccinelli

• Watched the clip again and would like to reiterate that Ken Cuccunnelli is a racist who doesn’t understand the first thing about America.
  • Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii, August 13, 2019, via Twitter (Flynn, Meagan (August 14, 2019). "‘Clearly, he did not take part in our curriculum’: Historians bash Ken Cuccinelli’s revised Statue of Liberty poem". The Washington Post. )

• Ken Cuccinelli just gave the game away. Racism is the point of their policy.
  • Representative Don Beyer of Virginia, August 13, 2019, via Twitter (Flynn, Meagan (August 14, 2019). "‘Clearly, he did not take part in our curriculum’: Historians bash Ken Cuccinelli’s revised Statue of Liberty poem". The Washington Post. )