No Person," states Article II, Section 1, "except a natural born Citizen … shall be eligible to the Office of President.
Some questions- is this a breach of human rights ?
Are there any other things a full American citizen (born outside USA) cannot do ?
Are there any other countries that have such a law ?
I am a New Zealander. I am sure this is not the case for New Zealand.
Why would this be a breach of human rights?
Only if your definition of human rights includes the right to become president of the US, and I’m not aware of any such definition. As for your remaining questions, I don’t know the answers.
Here are some links for related reading.
Naturalization in the US
Senators:
Jim
Those human rights questions can get tricky. Human rights aren’t really something you can derive and we really just have to make them up and get a consensus based on feelings. I don’t see that here.
If you want to know the reason that was included in the Constitution, it was to protect fledgling America from outside power. The idea was that powerful people might come here from other countries and try to get themselves elected president. Once that happened, the whole system might be vulnerable to outside control.
The reason we still have it is that the U.S. Constitution is unbelievably hard to change and it would be questionable if all the states and federal government would be willing to go through the process even if they were certain that it would pass (certainly not a given).
Yes, they can’t be vice-president of the United States.
Funny, I always thought the requirements for the top job in the New Zealand government hierarchy was way more restrictive and discriminatory that anything in the U.S.
What I meant was that the Prime Minister of NZ did not have to be born in NZ. Nor does the head of state have to be born in NZ. Obviously it is more difficult to become the head of state of NZ ( King or Queen) than to become President of USA.
QEII is head of state, not in the government.
There have been numerous thread on this subject here at the SDMB, but a person born of American citizens outside the United States of America is still a natural born American citizen, and has all rights of American citizenship, including being eligible for the presidency.
Note that the US president is both head of state and head of government.
That’s right. Natural-born citizen simply means that you have to be a citizen your whole life to qualify. There are other ways of doing that other than being physically born in the U.S. such as having two American citizen parents that live abroad. It doesn’t sound as bad to me if you phrase it l"life-long U.S. citizen."
It is possible to be born of parents both of whom are US Citizens at the time of the birth and yet not be born a US Citizen.
I point this out to emphasize that naturalization and citizenship can be arcane and non-intuitive areas of US law; they are very much subject to interpretation by congress and by courts.
The Speaker of the House does not need to be born in the US. When the Constitution was written, this position was equivalent to PM.
Any person born to parents with American citizenship is automatically a citizen of the US. If you have an example that contradicts this, I would like to see it.
That is different than the point of the OP. blinkingblinking is talking about people who are born as citizens of another country but become a US citizen later in life not being eligible to run for US president.
(The issue of being being born outside the US but still being born as a citizen is a separate issue.)
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Some questions- is this a breach of human rights ?
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Could be considered that way. As others have noted, though, it was included to prevent foreign adventurers from taking over the fledgling country, and not to make naturalized citizens “second-class”. The framers of the Constitution might well have been thinking of recent English history; the Hanoverian royal line had come from Germany less than 100 years before, and the Americans were not entirely happy with the current king!
I cannot think of any, offhand. Before the 1860s, however, the individual states had considerable leeway in defining who was a “full American citizen.” The civil rights amendments changed that, fortunately.
Probably. Moreover, some countries make it difficult for non-natives to ever become citizens. I don’t know the facts, but I think Germany has some fairly strict laws about that.
Japan is draconian; your chances of becoming a citizen are almost nil. Even if you managed it, you probably wouldn’t want to. No advantage to it; you’d always be considered an outsider even if you looked Japanese.
I think the British Commonwealth (past and present) is progressive about this. Canada has some restrictions on immigration, but they’re meant to protect the jobs of existing citizens and don’t focus on race or origin. Australia used to have some pretty racist ones; are they still in force?
At one time, the USA was very welcoming of immigrants and made obtaining citizenship fairly easy. Alas, that changed. We’re now in the midst of arguments about giving citizenship to illegal immigrants from Mexico. That’s a whole 'nuther issue.
The issue of becoming POTUS if you’re not US-born has come up with only two people I can think of: Henry Kissinger (born in Germany) and Arnold Schwarzenegger (born in Austria). Others may have occurred in history, but are obscure enough for me not to know them.
I don’t think that Kissinger ever wanted to run. Arnie probably entertains thoughts of running; I wouldn’t vote for him, but I don’t see why he should be prevented from running. But, like the Electoral College, I don’t see that this will change any time soon.
There are less than 30 amendments to the Constitution. One-third of them were needed to enact the Bill of Rights, and were added almost immediately. Three were needed to eliminate slavery and establish the concept of US citizenship. Therefore less than half have dealt with everything else, included the stupidest law (amendment or otherwise) ever enacted by a modern government: Prohibition! :eek: We wasted two on that piece of goofieness; one to enact it, and one (thankfully) to get rid of it.
It is a violation of every foreign born, enemy combatant human beings natural and inalienable right to become the President of the United States. That was Herr Hitler’s real problem. He got elected quite easily in Germany, but downright forgot to run in the US. It may have helped him turn the course of the war had he been elected. Put in this light, one can see that it is not a violation of his, nor anybody else’s, human rights.
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Some questions- is this a breach of human rights ?
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Could be considered that way. As others have noted, though, it was included to prevent foreign adventurers from taking over the fledgling country, and not to make naturalized citizens “second-class”. The framers of the Constitution might well have been thinking of recent English history; the Hanoverian royal line had come from Germany less than 100 years before, and the Americans were not entirely happy with the current king![/quote]
I think the War of Spanish Succesion made a big impact on the framers as well.
The Governator’s approval ratings are so low in California that the thought of a presidential run would only seem a pipe dream at this point. That said, the only way a constitutional amendment could pass would be if there was no obvious person waiting to benefit from it.