When the Fourteenth Amendment was written, it was written to give credit to the African Americans, recognize them. The way it should be. It was after a terrible Supreme Court decision, called the Dred Scott decision, that did not recognize them as humans virtually — it was outrageous. Well the Republican Congress said we’re not putting up with that. And it was written “born, naturalized, for whom we have jurisdiction.” It’s been hijacked. We have a path to citizenship and it’s not breaking into the country. The Fourteenth Amendment was never intended to be used the way it’s used. It was intended for those… Did you know that when the Fourteenth Amendment was passed in 1866 and ratified in 1868 it did not recognize the American Indian as citizens? And reason was because they were born on a reservation and members of a tribe and they were concerned about that jurisdiction language of the Fourteenth Amendment…

That was written by the same Congress that wrote the Civil Rights Amendment in 1866 that was a response to the Dred Scott decision. And then that same Congress that wrote the Civil Rights Amendment 1866, which has similar language but a little different that makes it very clear, and they should have used that same language. That same Congress that wrote the Fourteenth Amendment because they wanted to give the Civil Rights Amendment Constitutional protection, which I think was the right thing to do. They made it very clear in the debate on the floor.

—Arizona State Senator Russell Pearce
John King USA