Today in Racist Pandering
By Mike Huckabee advocates a return to Dred Scott-era citizenship rules for American-born children of illegal aliens. What’s even more pathetic is that he wants to join in crank litigation to claim that the 14th Amendment doesn’t actually say what it says:
Mr. Huckabee, who won last week’s Republican Iowa caucuses, promised Minuteman Project founder James Gilchrist that he would force a test case to the Supreme Court to challenge birthright citizenship, and would push Congress to pass a 28th Amendment to the Constitution to remove any doubt.
The last line is rich; crazily enough, I must admit to harboring “doubts” about whether the constitutional command that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside” in fact permits the United States to deny citizenship to people born in the United States. What’s the argument — that illegal aliens aren’t “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States? I don’t think that a complete exemption from the laws for millions of people is a good idea, but call me crazy…