The Constitution Is Perfectly Clear About Citizenship
It took all of about 39 seconds for the vicious “birther” chatter to reemerge once former Vice President Joe Biden announced that Senator Kamala Harris would be his running mate for the November election. No wonder, since a certain variety of American citizen just can’t seem to wrap his mind around the U.S. Constitution’s provisions guaranteeing equal citizenship to all Americans.
Not long after the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act, I gave a talk on civil liberties in a small hamlet tucked away in the foothills of Oregon’s Cascade Mountains.
Afterward, an audience member helpfully shared a secret: I didn’t know it, he said, but I was immune from any arrest or detention. If law enforcement tried to detain me, he said, “Just tell them you are not subject to the Fourteenth Amendment, and they have to let you go.”
“I don’t encourage you to try that,” I answered. He went away shaking his
