On NewsMax TV’s “Prime” earlier this week, Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz took on the current ongoing argument about the 14th Amendment and birthright citizenship, which has been raised in recent days over Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump and his immigration policy that questions the citizenship of those born in the United States from parents here illegally.
Dershowitz said although it was technically constitutional for those born here not of U.S. citizens to be considered citizens, it defied logic but was unlikely to change in the short-term.
“It means that somebody from far-flung corners of the earth happens to be born while his mother or her mother is making a stopover at JFK Airport and never again returns to America, has no connection to America, is a citizen,” Dershowitz said. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense logically, but it’s in our Constitution and it would be impossible to amend the Constitution to change that, so we’re going to stick with that for better or worse.”
He went on to call this wrinkle in American immigration policy “bizarre,” and pointed out that former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is restricted in running for president, whereas others born in the United States of non-citizen parents were not.
“Anybody born in the United States, even if they’re there for 15 minutes, not only is a citizen but has a right to run for president in the United States,” he added. “Whereas a person who came when he or she was six months old and is one of the most loyal possible Americans — Madeleine Albright comes to mind — can’t run for president of the United States, there is something quite bizarre about that but history, the accidents of history are often quite bizarre.”
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