US President Donald Trump today called Kamala Harris an ‘Anchor baby’ during one of his election rallies. Reacting to the decision of Joe Biden picking Kamala Harris as his running mate for the upcoming US Presidential elections, he claimed that she wasn’t eligible to qualify as a candidate because she was the child of two immigrants. Anchor baby is considered as a derogatory way of addressing a child born to immigrants, denoting the fact that her parents were both immigrants, her mother an Indian and her father a Jamaican. Notably, he had played the same card during the 2011 Presidential elections that saw the landslide win of former US President Barack Obama.
Donald Trump, speaking to reporters on Thursday, pushed forward with his attack, saying that she does not meet the requirements as she was born to immigrants.
“I heard it today that she doesn’t meet the requirements,” Trump said of Harris.
However, constitutional law experts say that the immigration status of Kamala Harris’s parents at the time of her birth is irrelevant because, under the Constitution, anyone born in the United States automatically acquires citizenship. The 14th Amendment makes it clear: “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.”
This not only nullifies Trump’s assertions, it further deepens the already existing racism accusations that have been levied on President Trump over the years.