Daniel Drezner, a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, has written a new opinion piece in the Washington Post assailing Trump supporter Michael Anton for advocating the end of birthright citizenship in the United States.
Drezner starts off by accusing Anton of arguing in bad faith for his claim that a belief in birthright citizenship in the U.S. is based on a deliberate misreading of the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution, which plainly states that "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."
In his article, Anton tried to argue that the men who drafted the 14th Amendment never intended that it extend to children of foreigners who happened to give birth while in the United States -- but as Drezner notes, Anton deliberately altered quotations about the amendment to twist their meaning.
Drezner then goes through Anton's litany of past statements attacking racial and ethnic diversity, which he has described as "a source of weakness, tension and disunion." Additionally, Anton has in the past written that "the ceaseless importation of Third World foreigners with no tradition of, taste for, or experience in liberty means that the electorate grows more left, more Democratic, less Republican, less republican, and less traditionally American with every cycle."
Drezner concludes that Anton's concerns with birthright citizenship go far beyond just stopping illegal immigration and actually extend to preserving a majority-white America.
"Anton’s creed is not just racist," he writes. "It is patently un-American."
