Claim:
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris cannot be president because her parents were not natural born U.S. citizens, or naturalized citizens, at the time of her birth.
Rating:
False ( About this rating? )
Context:
The requirements to qualify for the U.S. presidency have nothing to with the citizenship status of one’s parents. The individual must have been born in the United States or born to a parent who is a citizen of the United States.
In July 2024, U.S. President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race, endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris to be the Democratic candidate. Immediately social media users began to question her eligibility for the presidency on account of her parents being foreign citizens at the time of her birth.
A number of posts on X repeated the claim that because Harris' parents were not natural born citizens, or naturalized at the time of her birth, she was not qualified to run for president. This is not the first time such claims about Harris spread online.
(X user @creation247)
The above claims were false. Harris was born in Oakland, California, in 1964 . While she is indeed the child of immigrants, their citizenship status does not affect her eligibility for the presidency, according to the U.S. Constitution.
Article II Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution states the constitutional requirements for the office of U.S. president:
No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen Years a resident within the United States.
According to Merriam-Webster, " natural born " refers to having a specified status at birth, which in this case means the legal status of citizen or subject at birth. In this analysis in the Harvard Law Review , the term "natural born" refers to someone who is a U.S. citizen at birth:
All the sources routinely used to interpret the Constitution confirm that the phrase "natural born Citizen" has a specific meaning: namely, someone who was a U.S. citizen at birth with no need to go through a naturalization proceeding at some later time. And Congress has made equally clear from the time of the framing of the Constitution to the current day that, subject to certain residency requirements on the parents, someone born to a U.S. citizen parent generally becomes a U.S. citizen without regard to whether the birth takes place in Canada, the Canal Zone, or the continental United States.
As we have reported before, the requirements for president are simple and have nothing to do with the naturalization status of one's parents:
- The individual must have been born in the United States or born to a parent who is a citizen of the United States;
- The individual must be 35 years of age or older;
- The individual must have been a resident in the United States for at least 14 years.
We also noted in previous reporting that Harris was born in Oakland, California, on Oct. 20, 1964, making her at least 35 years old and unambiguously a natural-born United States citizen. Any child born on U.S. soil is a citizen of the United States from birth, regardless of the naturalization status of the child's parents. Harris did spend her high school years in Canada, but has been a resident in the United States since her time as an undergraduate at Howard University that began in 1982, and she has served in public office in the U.S. continuously since the 1990s.
Another claim around her eligibility questioned whether Harris' mother was a diplomat, making Harris ineligible for U.S. citizenship at the time of her birth. According to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS):
A person born in the United States to a foreign diplomatic officer accredited to the United States is not subject to the jurisdiction of United States law. Therefore, that person cannot be considered a U.S. citizen at birth under the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution. This person may, however, be considered a permanent resident at birth and able to receive a Green Card through creation of record.
However , Harris' Indian mother, Shyamala Gopalan, was not a diplomat when she came to the U.S. She was a student scientist at the University of California at Berkeley, where she met Donald Harris, a Jamaican-born student. Gopalan went on to become a cancer research scientist while Donald Harris became an economics professor, according to a New York Times story on their relationship.
Arguments around the eligibility of presidential candidates often focus on candidates of color. Former U.S. President Barack Obama's place of birth was repeatedly questioned by his opponents and conspiracy theorists, until he was forced to release his official birth certificate proving he was born in the U.S. state of Hawaii.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump has also long amplified such "birther" conspiracy theories against Obama and even against Harris when she ran for the vice presidential seat in 2020.
Sources:
"Article II." LII / Legal Information Institute, https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleii . Accessed 22 July 2024.
Barry, Ellen. "How Kamala Harris's Immigrant Parents Found a Home, and Each Other, in a Black Study Group." The New York Times, 13 Sept. 2020. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/13/us/kamala-harris-parents.html. " target="blank">https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/13/us/kamala-harris-parents.html.">https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/13/us/kamala-harris-parents.html. Accessed 22 July 2024.
"Biden Dropped Out of Presidential Race, Endorsed Kamala Harris?" Snopes, 21 July 2024, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/biden-resigns-election/. " target="blank">https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/biden-resigns-election/.">https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/biden-resigns-election/. Accessed 22 July 2024.
"Definition of NATURAL-BORN." Merriam-Webster. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/natural-born . Accessed 22 July 2024.
"Green Card for a Person Born in the United States to a Foreign Diplomat." USCIS, 16 June 2020, https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/green-card-eligibility/green-card-for-a-person-born-in-the-united-states-to-a-foreign-diplomat. " target="blank">https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/green-card-eligibility/green-card-for-a-person-born-in-the-united-states-to-a-foreign-diplomat.">https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/green-card-eligibility/green-card-for-a-person-born-in-the-united-states-to-a-foreign-diplomat. Accessed 22 July 2024.
Kamala Harris | Biography, Policies, Family, & Facts | Britannica. 22 July 2024, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Kamala-Harris. " target="blank">https://www.britannica.com/biography/Kamala-Harris.">https://www.britannica.com/biography/Kamala-Harris. Accessed 22 July 2024.
"Kamala Harris: The Vice President." The White House, https://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/vice-president-harris/ . Accessed 22 July 2024.
"Kamala Harris's Life, Career and Firsts from AG to the Vice Presidency." Washington Post, 21 July 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/photography/2020/08/14/amp-stories/moments-kamala-harriss-career-captured-photos-2/. " target="blank">https://www.washingtonpost.com/photography/2020/08/14/amp-stories/moments-kamala-harriss-career-captured-photos-2/.">https://www.washingtonpost.com/photography/2020/08/14/amp-stories/moments-kamala-harriss-career-captured-photos-2/. Accessed 22 July 2024.
Kasprak, Alex. "Is Kamala Harris Not Eligible to Serve as U.S. President?" Snopes, 22 Jan. 2019, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/kamala-harris-eligibility/. " target="blank">https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/kamala-harris-eligibility/.">https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/kamala-harris-eligibility/. Accessed 22 July 2024.
Keith, Tamara. "Trump's Racist 'Birther' Attacks On Harris Are A Return To Familiar Territory." NPR, 15 Aug. 2020. NPR, https://www.npr.org/2020/08/15/902756963/trumps-attacks-on-harris-are-a-return-to-familiar-territory. " target="blank">https://www.npr.org/2020/08/15/902756963/trumps-attacks-on-harris-are-a-return-to-familiar-territory.">https://www.npr.org/2020/08/15/902756963/trumps-attacks-on-harris-are-a-return-to-familiar-territory. Accessed 22 July 2024.
Klement, Paul, and Neal Katyal. On the Meaning of "Natural Born Citizen." Harvard Law Review, 2015, https://harvardlawreview.org/forum/vol-128/on-the-meaning-of-natural-born-citizen/. " target="blank">https://harvardlawreview.org/forum/vol-128/on-the-meaning-of-natural-born-citizen/.">https://harvardlawreview.org/forum/vol-128/on-the-meaning-of-natural-born-citizen/. Accessed 22 July 2024.
Mikkelson, David. "FACT CHECK: Is Barack Obama's Birth Certificate Fake?" Snopes, 27 Aug. 2008, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/birth-certificate/. " target="blank">https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/birth-certificate/.">https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/birth-certificate/. Accessed 22 July 2024.
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