The following is an excerpt from Blaze Media’s daily Capitol Hill Brief email newsletter:

Earlier this week, the Trump administration announced an updated rule to better screen out potential welfare users from immigration applications. Later in the week, the media tried to misrepresent what USCIS acting Director Ken Cucinelli said in defense of that rule.

Cucinelli said that the poem at the base of the Statue of Liberty was written about people coming from class-based societies that didn’t have the social mobility of a free society like the United States. The media and members of the 2020 Democratic field twisted that to say he was saying that the sentiment of the poem only applied to Europeans, which is a lie. You can watch the full video of what the acting director said here.

“Let us now review what has transpired over the past 24 hours or so,” the Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh writes. “A Trump immigration official answered a question on NPR. The media lied about the question and his answer. That official then went on CNN to clarify, and the media lied about his clarification.”

And here’s the thing about that poem on the base of the Statue of Liberty, “The New Colossus”: At the time when it was written, it was widely understood that incoming immigrants should not be a financial burden on the United States. The law even stipulated that the cost of sending public charges back would be “borne by the owners of the vessels in which they came.” But, then again, history is often complex; political smears and platitudes about it are easy.

Monday night on the radio, LevinTV host Mark Levin was joined by U.S. Customs and Immigration Services acting director Ken Cuccinelli to discuss the Trump administration's efforts to cut down on migrants who might pose a financial burden to the American taxpayer.

Earlier that day, Cuccinelli's agency announced an updated version of the government's "public charge" rule, meant to screen out immigrants who may be dependent on government welfare.

While the Trump administration has already been cracking down on potential immigrant welfare recipients, the updated version of the rule rolled out Monday morning will incorporate more types of public benefits that will be considered in the process and is an effort to “better ensure” that legal immigrants to the United States are “self-sufficient,” per a DHS press release.

"Self-sufficiency is central to American history. It's part of our core being as individual Americans, is pulling yourself up by your bootstraps," Cuccinelli told Levin on the radio. "And if you're not an immigrant who can do that, then you won't pass this test."

Cuccinelli explained that the rule itself is nothing new, since it is merely the implementation of bipartisan legislation passed in 1996 and has historical roots going back to the 1800s.

"We're changing no law. None," Cuccinelli said. What the new guidance does do, however, is "put meat on the bones" of the 1996 law, which has been the subject of "fairly weak" Clinton-era guidance on the law that "really didn't do much" up to now.

"It's just common sense, isn't it, folks?" Levin remarked of the updated regulation after the interview.

The host also pointed out that it's completely fair and appropriate to look to past generations of immigrants as a standard for comparison. "For those of you who are grandchildren of immigrants ... they never came here looking for one damn piece of anything from the government, and there wasn't anything to give."

Listen:

The following is an excerpt from Blaze Media’s daily Capitol Hill Brief email newsletter:

The Trump administration has introduced a new “public charge” rule to cut down on legal immigrants unlikely to support themselves without government welfare.

Section 212 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) clearly states that prospective visa and green card holders are inadmissible if the individual “at the time of application for admission or adjustment of status, is likely at any time to become a public charge.” Before that, Conservative Review’s Daniel Horowitz lays out, America had a long history of prudentially restricting immigration based on the potential that a newcomer might not be self-sufficient once admitted.

While the Trump administration has already been cracking down on potential immigrant welfare recipients, the updated version of the rule rolled out Monday morning will incorporate more types of public benefits that will be considered in the process and is an effort to “better ensure” that legal immigrants to the United States are “self-sufficient,” per a DHS press release.

“For over a century, the public charge ground of inadmissibility has been part of our nation’s immigration laws,” USCIS acting Director Ken Cuccinelli said in a statement. “Throughout our history, self-sufficiency has been a core tenet of the American dream. Self-reliance, industriousness, and perseverance laid the foundation of our nation and have defined generations of hardworking immigrants seeking opportunity in the United States ever since.”

Immigration lawyer David Leopold, however, told The Washington Times that the move is “a flimsy pretext to close America’s door to middle and working-class immigrants.”

The regulations do not apply to vulnerable populations seeking asylum or refugee status in the United States, victims of severe human trafficking, or victims of domestic violence applying for green cards under the Violence Against Women Act, per a USCIS fact sheet. Under the new rule, applicants denied solely on public charge grounds will be able in some circumstances to post a bond along with their application.

The rule will be dated August 14 in the Federal Register and will go into effect 60 days later.