Law professor comments on 14th ammendment

Professor Paul Bender of the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law was quoted in an article, “Amid immigration debate, questions arise over 14th Amendment’s meaning,” published Sept. 12 in The Arizona Republic.

The article, by reporter Dan Nowicki, examined an alternate viewpoint that the citizenship provision of the 14th Amendment, which grants automatic citizenship to children born in the U.S. to illegal immigrants, has been misinterpreted.

Opponents of illegal immigration are talking about a constitutional amendment that would require one or both parents to be U.S. citizens, or at least lawful permanent residents, or passing federal or state legislation to provoke a court battle over the citizenship clause, Nowicki wrote.

Bender suggested those opponents should take political steps to update the Constitution, rather than challenge citizenship through a U.S. Supreme Court case.

“If there’s a problem that comes up that people didn’t think about, you have a constitutional amendment,” he said. “You don’t do it by reinterpreting or misinterpreting constitutional language. In the long run, that’s a really bad idea because then the Constitution doesn’t mean anything. You want judges to stick by it.”

Bender, a Dean Emeritus, teaches courses on U.S. and Arizona constitutional law. He has written extensively about constitutional law, intellectual property and Indian law, and is coauthor of the two-volume casebook/treatise, Political and Civil Rights in the United States. Professor Bender has argued more than 20 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, and actively participates in constitutional litigation in federal and state courts.

Janie Magruder, [email protected]
(480) 727-9052
Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law