Former Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo (aka Loony Toons) continues anti-Mexican hate and lies even after leaving office. Hate is hate.

Tancredo’s lunacy comes from when he was a draft dodging evader and liar. He manifested a profound hate for the USA when he claimed mental illness to avoid the Vietnam draft. Or, did he lie?

Today he pathologically disseminates a huge lie that injures millions of people when he maintains there are 20 million illegal aliens in this country. He offers no proof of truth, just that it is true because he says so. There are fewer than 12-million according to all responsible estimates.

Tancredo is a Vietnam War draft dodger. His cowardice is proven by self-proclaimed mental illness so he would not be drafted to serve as an Army chaplain’s assistant. Remember this legal precept, if a person lies about one thing, we can assume he lies about other things.

He is not very bright; in fact, he is as dumb as a tree. So why is he joined in publicly crying that babies born here of illegal alien mothers should not be automatic citizens at birth by none other than Princeton’s star alumnus, George Will?

Natural born citizenship has been the case (except for Indians and black slaves) in the USA and before it in Colonial British America even before the Constitution’s 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868.

The 14th clearly states: “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.” It also prohibits the (state and federal) government from denying “any person within its jurisdiction the of the laws.”

The 14th’s meaning is clear. The Supreme Court has so ruled on numerous occasions starting with the Wong case in 1898 through the 1982 Plyer v. Doe case. As Justice William Brennan posited in Plyler, aren’t the children of illegals PERSONS? Yes, they are.

Newsweek and Washington Post OP-ED writer George Will thinks otherwise. He uses thinking of an uber conservative law professor as his basis for challenging the Constitution. Lino Graglia of the University of Texas law school provides the intellectual basis for Will.

Graglia writes that, “It is difficult to imagine a more irrational and self-defeating legal system than one which makes unauthorized entry into this country a criminal offense and simultaneously provides perhaps the greatest possible inducement (natural born citizenship) to illegal entry.”

“Legal scholar” Graglia is wrong. Illegal entry is a misdemeanor mostly handled administratively by Border Patrol officers, not judges or courts. Simple deportation is most often used and the courts have ruled that deportation is not punishment. Thus, Graglia is off base.

Will: “Writing in the Texas Review of Law and Politics, (Gaglia) says this irrationality is rooted in a misunderstanding of the phrase ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof.’ What was this intended or understood to mean by those who wrote it in 1866 and ratified it in 1868? The authors and ratifiers could not have intended birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants because in 1868 there were and never had been any illegal immigrants because no law ever had restricted immigration.”

Will and Graglia are wrong in this conclusion. If there were no laws restricting “immigration” before 1868, there certainly were laws restricting citizenship. These laws were Article II, Section 8 laws written under Congress’ specific and exclusive constitutional power to “establish an (sic) uniform Rule of Naturalization…”

Under this Article, Congress wrote the 14th Amendment and submitted it to the states for ratification which was done on July 9th 1868. Will continues his nonsense with, “If those who wrote and ratified the 14th Amendment had imagined laws restricting immigration — and had anticipated huge waves of illegal immigration — is it reasonable to presume they would have wanted to provide the reward of citizenship to the children of the violators of those laws? Surely not.”

If, if, if…

Here from Justice Brennan’s majority opinion in Plyler, “Representative Bingham reported to the House the draft resolution …that was to become the Fourteenth Amendment”

“Is it not essential to the unity of the Government and the unity of the people that ALL PERSONS, whether citizens or strangers, within this land, shall have equal protection in every State in this Union in the rights of life and liberty and property?.”

From Senate debate, Brennan quoted these words, “(the 14th) will… forever disable (states and the federal government) from passing laws trenching upon those fundamental rights and privileges which pertain…to ALL PERSONS who may happen to be within their jurisdiction.”

Tom Tancredo, George Will and Lino Graglia, “all persons” means all persons. So does the application of the 14th’s Equal Protection clause to “all persons” in the United States. The Supremes says so. Comprende?

Contreras’ books are available at amazon.com

Tag: conservative