Natural-born-citizen clause (United States)

The consensus of early 21st-century constitutional and legal scholars, together with relevant case law, is that natural-born citizens include, subject to exceptions, those born in the United States.

"[38] On July 25, 1787, John Jay wrote to George Washington, presiding officer of the Convention: Permit me to hint, whether it would not be wise and seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government, and to declare expressly that the Command in chief of the American army shall not be given to, nor devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen.

[41] Cenk Uygur, a naturalized U.S. citizen seeking participation in the 2024 Democratic Party presidential primaries, was excluded from states' ballots after making arguments similar to Hassan's.

[42][43][44] Shiva Ayyadurai, also a naturalized U.S. citizen seeking to participate in the 2024 United States presidential election, also made these arguments and was excluded.

"[1] In a footnote, Tucker wrote that naturalized citizens have the same rights as the natural-born except "they are forever incapable of being chosen to the office of president of the United States.

[50] A popular myth about the clause suggests that one of the reasons it was written was to disqualify Alexander Hamilton, who was born in the British West Indies, from assuming the office of president.

Field wrote: After an exhaustive examination of the law, the Vice-Chancellor said that he entertained no doubt that every person born within the dominions and allegiance of the United States, whatever the situation of his parents, was a natural-born citizen, and added that this was the general understanding of the legal profession, and the universal impression of the public mind.

At age 20, she contacted the US-American embassy in Sweden and, shortly after her 21st birthday, returned to the United States on a U.S. passport and was admitted as a U.S. citizen.

[71] More recent cases, particularly Nguyen v. INS and Robinson v. Bowen, suggested that the Fourteenth Amendment merely establishes a "floor" for birthright citizenship, and this category may be expanded by Congress.

In 1862, Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase sent a query to Attorney General Edward Bates asking whether or not "colored men" can be citizens of the United States.

Unlike Edward Bates, U.S. Secretary of State William Learned Marcy was equivocal about whether those born in the country of alien parents and who reside elsewhere are still considered citizens.

Prior to this time the subject of citizenship by birth was generally held to be regulated by the common law, by which all persons born within the limits and allegiance of the United States were deemed natural-born citizens.

Under our Constitution the question is settled by its express language, and when we are informed ... no person is eligible to the office of President unless he is a natural born citizen, the principle that the place of birth creates the relative quality is established as to us.

"[90] The 9th Edition of Black's Law Dictionary, published in 2009, defined "natural-born citizen" as "A person born within the jurisdiction of a national government".

[112] In a 2006 John Marshall Law Review article, Paul A. Clark argues that the Fifth Amendment should be read as implicitly repealing the requirement that the U.S. president needs to be a natural-born U.S.

[116] Specifically, Tribe argues that the U.S. Congress should use the Fourteenth Amendment's Enforcement Clause to pass a statute that would allow naturalized U.S. citizens to run for and to become U.S.

[116] Tribe points out that a similar logic could be used by a future U.S. Supreme Court to uphold a hypothetical Congressional statute that allows naturalized U.S. citizens to run for and to become U.S.

Further, four additional U.S. presidents had one or both of his U.S.-citizen parents not born on U.S. soil (James Buchanan, Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover, and Donald Trump).

[133][134] Romney's grandfather, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, had emigrated to Mexico in 1886 with his three wives and their children, after the U.S. federal government outlawed polygamy.

His mother, Roberta McCain, has said that she has vivid memories of lying in bed listening to raucous celebrations of her son's birth from the nearby officers' club.

A March 2008 paper by former Solicitor General Ted Olson and Harvard Law Professor Laurence H. Tribe opined that McCain was eligible for the Presidency.

[157] In Rogers v. Bellei, the Supreme Court ruled that children "born abroad of American parents" are not citizens within the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment but did not elaborate on their natural-born status.

[158][155] Similarly, legal scholar Lawrence Solum concluded in an article on the natural born citizen clause that the question of McCain's eligibility could not be answered with certainty, and that it would depend on the particular approach of "constitutional construction".

In Ankeny v. Governor, a three-member Indiana Court of Appeals stated, Based upon the language of Article II, Section 1, Clause 4 and the guidance provided by Wong Kim Ark, we conclude that persons born within the borders of the United States are 'natural born Citizens' for Article II, Section 1 purposes, regardless of the citizenship of their parents.

[176][212] Cruz's eligibility was questioned by some of his primary opponents, including Donald Trump,[213] Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, Carly Fiorina and Rand Paul.

[228] On August 11, 2020, Democratic Party presidential nominee Joe Biden selected Harris as his running mate, and they were both elected in November that year.

The response went on and stated, "the meaning of 'natural born Citizen', and the relation of that Article II textual requirement to the 14th Amendment's Citizenship Clause, are issues of legal interpretation about which scholars and commentators can, and will, robustly disagree.

Numerous social media posts soon asserted that Harris, Biden's presumptive successor for the Democratic party's presidential nomination, was ineligible to serve as president.

[239] Nikki Haley, born in Bamberg, South Carolina of immigrant Indian parents, sought the Republican Party's nomination for the 2024 United States presidential election.

[241] Geoffrey R. Stone, a professor of Law at the University of Chicago, called this claim "bonkers" because Haley was born in the United States.