With Donald Trump recently bringing to light Sen. Ted Cruz’s potential ineligibility to run for president, there has been much debate over exactly how a natural-born citizen is and should be defined. It is my hope that if this issue ever does reach the Supreme Court, a natural-born citizen will be specified as someone who is born to a U.S. citizen, regardless of his place of birth. This would better reflect allegiance to this country, while other qualifications may also be set in place to do so.
In response to this issue, many point to the fact that under common law a natural-born citizen has been defined as someone who was born in a nation’s jurisdiction, since 18th-century English jurist William Blackstone declared natural-born citizens as those born “within the dominions of the crown of England.” Others, including former top Supreme Court litigators Neal Katyal and Paul Clement, assert that all the sources routinely used to interpret the Constitution confirm a natural-born citizen as someone who is born a U.S. citizen at birth with no need to undergo a naturalization process at a later time. Under this frame of thought, those born outside of the United States to at least one parent with U.S. citizenship, and who are therefore naturalized at birth, are natural-born citizens to the United States.
Either way, many scholars agree that the Founding Fathers included this stipulation as a requirement to run for president due to fear of intrigue by foreigners attempting to “divide the new nation or influence its decisions.” However, the world we live in today is very different than it was at that time. Today, people travel quickly and easily for both work and recreation, and since the United States is now much more political than it was when it was founded, we have a great deal of military and government employees stationed throughout the world. As a result, many people are born outside the United States as citizens and maintain a strong allegiance to this nation, while many born inside the country may not.
I understand that defining what it truly means to be “American” is difficult, as we are a nation built on immigration that is often referred to as a “melting pot.” Still, defining the term natural-born citizen is not an attempt to define “American.” It is a qualification for the highest position in our government, and allegiance is of utmost importance for such a position. After all, even those wishing to join the foreign service must first give up citizenship to any other nation in order to ensure such devotion.
One could come up with numerous instances concerning someone born either abroad or here and how that person’s situation provides him with more or less of an allegiance to our country. Even with my preferred definition for a natural-born citizen, there are ways to go about ensuring that those running for president carry that allegiance. Take an example where one person is born outside of the United States to two U.S. citizens (and is therefore born a citizen) but only comes to the United States for exactly the 365 days before reaching 14 years of age necessary to maintain that citizenship. Compared to someone born in the United States to two parents who do not have citizenship, but who never holds citizenship in any other country and spends his whole life here, it only seems logical that the first maintains less of a connection to the country. Likewise, someone receiving dual-citizenship upon birth on U.S. soil to two parents with U.S. citizenship, but who moves to another country at age 4 and doesn’t return until age 40, may likely feel less devoted to the United States than someone born abroad as a U.S. citizen who never carries any other passport and who lives here for most of his life. To solve this dilemma, a condition for eligibility could be made that someone running for president has held only U.S. citizenship for a specified period of time leading to his campaign, or perhaps even that he has never held citizenship in another country at all.
I realize this disparity as someone born abroad to two parents carrying only U.S. citizenship at the time of my birth, and who currently serve as Foreign Service Officers. Even though I was not born on a U.S. base in that country, I was never granted citizenship to any other country, and have only ever felt (or been) nationally tied to the United States. Yet some would say I could never run for president, while someone born inside the United States to two undocumented immigrants as a part of an attempt to secure an advantage in achieving legal residency, could. If the case comes to it, the Supreme Court should rule that a natural-born citizen is anyone who is born a citizen in order to more accurately reflect allegiance.
Alyssa Imam is an Opinion columnist for The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at a.imam@cavalierdaily.com.
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