Julianne Hing flags an astonishing quote from Republican Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce, author of Arizona's draconian SB 1070 immigration law:
"The 14th Amendment was never intended to be applied to illegal aliens," Mr. Pearce said. "They [the sponsors] specifically said it didn't apply to foreigners or aliens. That amendment belongs to the African-Americans of this country. It's their amendment."
That's verifiably false -- as Damon Root has written, there was a great deal of debate at the time about the 14th Amendment granting citizenship to the children of foreigners. But this statement begs the question, does Pearce think the rest of the Constitution "belongs" to white people? How exactly does that work?
