This article was OK until the "huddled masses" were, seemingly inevitably, introduced. The phrase is from Emma Lazarus's sonnet, which was added to the statue's pedestal years later, with the permission of precisely nobody -- especially not the ordinary American citizens who are expected to make room and accept the "huddled masses" (such as the poverty legions crashing our southwest border today).
In short, the statue is about **liberty** -- "Liberty Enlightening the World" -- not immigration. It's **not** an invitation to the world to move here. It's just a suggestion that people all over the world might look to the workings of ordered liberty in American society as a possible example to follow themselves.
See "She Was Never About Those Huddled Masses," by Roberto Suro, founding director of the Pew Hispanic Center (and now director of the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute at USC) in the WaPo at Independence Day, 2009: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/02/AR2009070201737_pf.html
The statue is not, in any way, an "argument" in favor of immigration, but a lot of ignorant people think it is.
In short, the statue is about **liberty** -- "Liberty Enlightening the World" -- not immigration. It's **not** an invitation to the world to move here. It's just a suggestion that people all over the world might look to the workings of ordered liberty in American society as a possible example to follow themselves.