Author:  R. Alan Harrop, Ph.D.   

Even though the U.S. Constitution was written by the Founding Fathers to be a permanent and long-lasting guide to the governance of this country, it was also written to address issues pertinent at that time. The Supreme Court Justices should take this into account when applying the original constitution and subsequent amendments to issues currently facing our country. This does not mean, as some of the far Left believe, that the Constitution is a “living document” subject to all kinds of interpretations, but rather we must fully understand the conditions and context at the time it was written to ensure we are accurately interpreting the intention of the authors.

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to take a case brought by the Trump administration concerning so-called “Birth Right Citizenship,” which is the notion that allows anyone born in this country to be a citizen. This has been a problem for years and is becoming more so as more people move to this country. There are cases where women from other countries who are already pregnant, travel to this country in order to have their child born here. Illegal aliens give birth to children in this country to ensure that not only the child but its parents and relatives can stay in this country. These are obvious manipulations of the Constitution. It should also be noted that no other country allows this to happen in their country. The Fourteenth Amendment was written and approved right after the Civil War. The intent was to ensure that all persons previously held in slavery would be granted full U.S citizenship and that individual states could not abridge their rights. There is no mention of allowing the children born of persons who are here temporarily or illegally granted automatic citizenship. There is a clause that states: “…and subject to the jurisdiction of (the United States).” One can clearly argue that a person here temporarily or illegally is not under the jurisdiction of the United States since they are citizens of their country of origin. Hopefully, when the Supreme Court rules on this issue this spring, they will rule correctly and restrict birth right citizenship only to children born to American citizens.

Another issue is freedom of religion. Although not yet before the court, we are facing an issue with the growing population of legal and illegal immigrants who are Islamists. The First Amendment to the Constitution prohibits the federal government from establishing a state religion (i.e. like the Church of England) and interfering with the practice of any religion. In subsequent decisions, the Supreme Court ruled that the right to the free practice of religion must not interfere with public morals or an overriding government interest. For example, the Mormons were prohibited from legally practicing polygamy, which was a key element of their religion, and states are allowed to force inoculation of children to protect public health. It is pretty clear to me that Islamists advocating and practicing Sharia Law are interfering with public morals to the extent that Sharia Law conflicts with American law and morals. Surely when the Founding Fathers advocated for the ability to practice one’s religion, they had in mind religions that reflected Judeo/Christian principles and not any and all religions that existed in the world, or would be created in the future. The lslamist Quron (the basis for Sharia Law) states in several places that its followers can convert you or kill you. That concept is definitely in conflict with public morals. The mass demonstrations in some Islamist countries shouting “Death to America” as well as the brutal killing of Jews in October 2023 by Hamas shows the reality of the threat posed by Islamists.

The solution is to limit the number of immigrants from Islamist countries and require them to renounce their commitment to Sharia Law. If they are not willing to renounce Sharia Law, they should remain in their country of origin. Also, all Islamists here illegally should be deported along with all other illegal aliens. President Eisenhower did this in the 1950s and we must do it now. If we fail to take appropriate action, we will end up like many European countries which are losing their cultural identity. We only want immigrants who want to become Americans since it is the only way to preserve what has made this country great. Also, we should do all we can to encourage natural born American citizens to have more children in order to reverse the declining birthrate, so we do not have to rely on immigrants to maintain our labor force.