In light of the resulting drain on social services, increased crime, school crowding, and economic impact of illegal immigration, the time to end so-called “anchor babies” is long overdue. However, on his Aug. 4 program, liberal talk show host Bill Press became unhinged over U.S. Senators who questioned the modern interpretation of the 14^th Amendment.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., the ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, suggested the 14^th Amendment is being misinterpreted and abused in a way not intended by the original authors. But instead of some kind of logical rebuttal, Press decided to mock Session’s accent, stereotyping Southern people complete with accompanying banjo music.

In his faux Southern accent: “You know our founding fathers didn’t know them jet skis - they got them jet skis in Tijuana . They do, they just zip up the coast and have their baby on the beach in La Hoya, La Joya, La Jolla and then they back to Tijuana with a little baby American. God darn if Thomas Jefferson had only know’d that we would have been different.”

His diatribe continued: “Ah yeah, did Thomas Jefferson know ’bout dem UFOs? Man, those aliens coming here from outer space, popping out a baby and then hopping in their spaceship and goin’ home. What’s this world coming to? I’m tellin’ ya, if James Madison know’d that he would’ve done different.”

This line of attack is typical of the left. Someone makes a rational argument, and liberals offer fallacies, mockery, and personal attacks in response. Press concluded his tirade by wondering if we should take away the citizenship of people born in Alabama. He then had the nerve to call critics “mean-spirited.”

The 14^th Amendment was added after the Civil War to ensure newly freed slaves had all the rights and privileges of citizenship. The drafters had no intention of conferring citizenship on the children of aliens who happened to be born here. Sen. Jacob Howard, the author of the citizenship clause, expressly said: “This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers.”

But all that changed in 1982 when Justice Brennan slipped a footnote into his 5-4 opinion in Plyler v. Doe, claiming that “no plausible distinction with respect to Fourteenth Amendment ‘jurisdiction’ can be drawn between resident aliens whose entry into the United States was lawful, and resident aliens whose entry was unlawful.” No plausible distinction? The part about lawful and unlawful entry sounds like a valid distinction.

A single judicial activist should not be able to overturn a century of history based on personal whims. It’s the attitudes of people like Brennan and Press who contributed to the huge problems associated with illegal immigration.