Hands off the Constitution

Opinion: January 8, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

By Eric Ward

McClatchy-Tribune

Politicians should stop monkeying with our Constitution — especially the 14th Amendment.

Ratified in 1868 after a long bloody civil war over slavery, the 14th Amendment granted citizenship to any person born in the United States, compelled states to adhere to due process and ensured equal protection under the law. This last clause confers on all people — not just citizens — the right to such protection.

At the start of this year, some of our nation’s top state legislators joined hands in Washington with the legal institute of the Federation for American Immigration Reform to undercut the 14th Amendment.

Altering the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause would amount to redefining what it means to be an American by modifying the terms of citizenship on barely concealed racial grounds. These state elected officials argue that trashing the 14th Amendment is crucial to controlling our nation’s borders. But immigration reform cannot be achieved by undermining the individual liberties of American citizens. Attempts by state-level politicians to do so in the past have been disastrous to American democracy.

For instance, state anti-immigrant laws that require proof of citizenship have had a significant negative impact on the black community. Professor Tim Vercellotti of Rutgers University has found that the black vote was suppressed by 5.7 percent in states that demand voter identification.

Good record

While people of good conscience may reasonably disagree over the nation’s immigration policies, efforts to tamper with the 14th Amendment must be rejected. Anyone born here deserves to be a citizen. This approach has worked well for 143 years. Millions of American families of every color have benefited from the generosity of spirit that the citizenship clause offers.

Eric Ward is the national field director for the Center for New Community. He wrote this for Progressive Media Project, a source of liberal commentary on domestic and international issues; it is affiliated with The Progressive magazine. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.