Republicans support racism

The state Republican Party adopted a platform on Saturday that opposed automatic citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants. The platform directly contravenes the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which states in part:

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. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

When adopted, this amendment was meant to overrule previous U.S. Supreme Court decisions that had excluded African-Americans from full citizenship and from equal protection of the law. Note how the amendment extends due process and equal protection to any person, not just to citizens.

Combined with the Thirteenth Amendment, which banned slavery, and the Fifteenth Amendment, which provided African-Americans with equal access to the right to vote, these three additions to the U.S. Constitution were a direct effort to include African-Americans in the rights and privileges of American life and to outlaw the extreme prejudice and racism to which they had been subjected. Each amendment was adopted between 1865 and 1870.

Now the state Republican party would like to cross out a section of that amendment, reverse over a hundred years of widespread legal agreement, and permit prejudice and racism, but only as it applies to illegal immigrants, which is Republican code for Hispanics – primarily Mexicans.

Attorney General Rob McKenna hopes no one will notice. The Seattle Times reports his analysis. “I think the attention span of the public on party platforms is very brief. I don't think platforms help you or hurt you very much," he said.

The platform mentions that immigrants might be welcome if they are willing to embrace the American language, culture and legal system. We suppose that’s the “white people exemption” to the illegal immigrant rule – Republicans may allow immigrants from Canada, Europe, even Russia to propagate within U.S. borders and have children who, according to the U.S. Constitution, are automatically citizens. But people from the south, Mexicans, Cubans, Dominicans, Haitians, anybody with dark skin – Washington's Republicans would prefer that the U.S. Constitution not apply to them.