Ken Cuccinelli says immigrants should be able to “stand on their own feet” and the Statue of Liberty’s famed poem was only supposed to apply to newcomers from Europe. But the hard-line Trump immigration official’s own ancestors were dirt-poor Italian laborers who apparently came through Ellis Island on a crowded steamship like millions of other future Americans, documents obtained by the New York Daily News suggest.

“True to his word and kind and supportive to all, he left a legacy that is still growing in stature and importance,” Cuccinelli proudly wrote on Facebook on the 100th anniversary of the birth of his grandfather, Domenick Luigi Cuccinelli. But it was his great-grandfather — with no education and little or nothing to his name — who emigrated from Italy to the United States.