Qualifications for President and the “Natural Born” Citizenship Eligibility Requirement
be eligible to the office of President;” and “the Congress shall have the power to establish an uniform rule of naturalization.” Constitution, art. 2, sect. 1; art. 1, sect. 8.[1]
The federal courts have on numerous occasions examined those two categories of citizens of the United States—“natural born” citizens (those who are citizens “by birth”), and “naturalized” citizens (those who are born “aliens” and who must go through the process of “naturalization”)—in the context of the various rights and duties of such citizens within these two categories. The Court has thus explained that “eligibility to the Presidency” is one of the very few “rights and prerogatives of citizenship obtained by birth in this country” which is not available to a “naturalized” citizen.[2] Similarly, the Court has noted: “The naturalized citizen has as much right as the natural-born citizen to exercise the cherished freedoms of speech, press and religion….”;[3] and the Court has examined the right of New York to require its “class of civil servants to be citizens, either natural born or naturalized.”[4] The United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit more recently explained that “once naturalized [appellant] is afforded precisely the same protection of his right to associate as is a natural born citizen.”[5] Referring specifically to eligibility to the office of President, a United States Court of Appeals found:
No more is demanded of an alien who becomes a citizen than a natural-born citizen, and, when an alien becomes a citizen, he is accorded all the rights and privileges afforded to a natural-born citizen except eligibility to the presidency.[6]
It should be noted that numerous constitutional scholars and commentators have used the term “native born” or “native citizen” in a manner which might in some contexts be considered synonymous with “natural born,” to indicate a U.S. citizenship from birth in relation to Presidential eligibility, and to distinguish such eligibility from one who is a “naturalized” citizen. James Kent, for example, in his Commentaries on American Law, explained: “As the President is required to be a native citizen of the United States, ambitious foreigners can not intrigue for the office, and the qualification of birth cuts off all those inducements from abroad to corruption, negotiation, and war….”[7] Similarly, Justice Joseph Story used the term “native citizen” in a treatise on the Constitution: “It is not too much to say that no one but a native citizen, ought ordinarily to be entrusted to an office so vital to the safety and liberties of the people.”[8] As noted
- ↑ Elk v. Wilkins, 112 U.S. 94, 101 (1884). Emphasis added.
- ↑ Knauer v. United States, 328 U.S. 654, 658 (1946) (emphasis added): “Citizenship obtained through naturalization is not a second-class citizenship. It has been said that citizenship carries with it all the rights and prerogatives of citizenship obtained by birth in this country ‘save that of eligibility to the Presidency.’”
- ↑ Baumgartner v. United States, 322 U.S. 665, 680 (1944) (emphasis added). The Court also noted there: “Under our Constitution, a naturalized citizen stands on equal footing with the native citizen in all respects save that of eligibility to the Presidency.” Id. at 673.
- ↑ Sugarman v. Dougall, 413 U.S. 634, 661 (1973) (Rehnquist, J., dissenting, as to whether such distinction between citizens and aliens in New York’s civil service law violates equal protection clause).
- ↑ Price v. United States Immigration and Naturalization Service, 941 F.2d 878, 884–885 (9th Cir. 1991). Note also Justices Rutledge and Murphy concurring in a case concerning denaturalization, comparing the rights of a “natural-born citizen [to] his birthright” citizenship and the rights of “naturalized” citizens. Klapprott v. United States, 335 U.S. 601, 617 (1949).
- ↑ MacIntosh v. United States, 42 F.2d 845, 848 (2nd Cir. 1930), reversed on other grounds, United States v. MacIntosh, 283 U.S. 605 (1931). The Supreme Court, in the appeal of this case, similarly found: “The alien, when he becomes a naturalized citizen, acquires, with one exception, every right possessed under the Constitution by those citizens who are native born.” 283 U.S. at 623–624.
- ↑ Kent, Commentaries on American Law, at 273 (Vol. I, 2d ed. 1832).
- ↑ Story, A Familiar Exposition of the Constitution of the United States, §271, at 167 (Boston 1840).
