Story highlights Miller: "The poem that you're referring to was added later (and) is not actually part of the original Statue of Liberty"

"The New Colossus" sonnet was added to the Statue of Liberty in 1903

Washington, DC (CNN) White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller brushed aside a reference to the famous poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty at Wednesday's White House press briefing, noting that it was added after the monument was erected in the US.

As part of a question about President Donald Trump's support for a new skills-based immigration proposal , CNN's Jim Acosta invoked Emma Lazarus's poetic words.

"The Statue of Liberty says, 'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free.' It doesn't say anything about speaking English or being a computer programmer," Acosta said . "Aren't you trying to change what it means to be an immigrant coming into this country if you're telling them that you have to speak English?"

Miller responded that as a requirement to be naturalized, "you have to speak English," and continued, "so the notion that speaking English wouldn't be a part of immigration systems would be very ahistorical."

He went on: "Secondly, I don't want to get off into a whole thing about history here, but the Statue of Liberty is a symbol of American liberty lighting the world. The poem that you're referring to was added later (and) is not actually part of the original Statue of Liberty."

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