# Could somebody whose status as a natural-born citizen cannot be verified become US President? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 16, 2013, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-somebody-whose-status-as-a-natural-born-citizen-cannot-be-verified-become-us-president/647377 "2013-01-16T13:38:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2013, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-somebody-whose-status-as-a-natural-born-citizen-cannot-be-verified-become-us-president/647377/21 "2013-01-16T17:05:59Z")
> [@KermitTheFrig](#): > > Personally I think that legal citizenship is all that should be required, anyway. If a person can be elected to any other public office in the US, I cannot see why the Presidency should be any different. The requirement is no doubt an artifact of the concern during the early years of the Republic that the President should have clear links to and loyalty to the new nation, and not to some European power. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2013, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-somebody-whose-status-as-a-natural-born-citizen-cannot-be-verified-become-us-president/647377/22 "2013-01-16T17:08:12Z")
It’s different because the Constitution says so. In fact, qualifications for office are one of the few areas where it tends toward the specific (though the qualifications for offices of the US are not exactly exhaustive): [QUOTE=Article II] 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. [/QUOTE] Compare Article I: > [@](#): > > No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen. > > No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen. Article III doesn’t lay out any qualifications at all for the federal judiciary, even for members of SCOTUS. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2013, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-somebody-whose-status-as-a-natural-born-citizen-cannot-be-verified-become-us-president/647377/23 "2013-01-16T17:12:43Z")
McCain isn’t even the only candidate that has been born outside the USA, George Romney and Barry Goldwater were also born outside the US to US citizen parents. With no objections raised. ---
**Author:** ![KermitTheFrig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/47e85d/32.png) [@KermitTheFrig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KermitTheFrig)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2013, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-somebody-whose-status-as-a-natural-born-citizen-cannot-be-verified-become-us-president/647377/24 "2013-01-16T17:30:32Z")
Those guys and their commas. . . “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. . . .” You could almost make an argument that nobody is eligible if they weren’t around at the time of the adoption of the Constitution. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2013, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-somebody-whose-status-as-a-natural-born-citizen-cannot-be-verified-become-us-president/647377/25 "2013-01-16T17:41:28Z")
> [@grude](#): > > McCain isn’t even the only candidate that has been born outside the USA, George Romney and Barry Goldwater were also born outside the US to US citizen parents. > > With no objections raised. Goldwater was born in the incorporated territory of Arizona 1909. Although this was before Arizona gained statehood in 1912, he would have been subject to US jurisdiction at that time. George Romney was born in Mexico in 1907, out of both the “limits and jurisdiction of the US,” and thus unlike McCain eligible for US citizenship at the time of his birth. The issue was mentioned during their candidacies, but neither case was really questionable, certainly not to the degree McCain’s is. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2013, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-somebody-whose-status-as-a-natural-born-citizen-cannot-be-verified-become-us-president/647377/26 "2013-01-16T17:43:10Z")
> [@Donnerwetter](#): > > This either means being born in the United States or alternatively being born abroad to parents who are American citizens. This is a reasonable interpretation, but bear in mind that no court has ever interpreted this provision, and thus there is no authoritative definition. Any answers offered here must necessarily be speculative. I’m fighting the hypothetical, but I think that in the scenario described, the foundling would be deemed a native of the host country and turned over to local authorities, particularly given the possibility that one parent was native. In the current climate over international adoption, to do otherwise would in some countries lead to protests over baby-stealing. If it did go down as described in the OP, though, the State Department would have issued the equivalent of a birth certificate showing US citizenship from the presumed date of birth. I expect that a court reviewing a challenge to the candidate’s status would likely defer to that determination and find natural-born citizenship. Like **Colibri** mentions, a legal challenge may be unlikely in any event. I do think that another candidate may have standing to bring a challenge, but it’s so often politically disadvantageous to do so. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2013, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-somebody-whose-status-as-a-natural-born-citizen-cannot-be-verified-become-us-president/647377/27 "2013-01-16T18:10:47Z")
I have wondered if there is anything stoping Congress from defining a natural born citizen as someone who has been “naturalized for x years”. Perhaps SCOTUS might decline to review that based on the political question doctrine. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2013, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-somebody-whose-status-as-a-natural-born-citizen-cannot-be-verified-become-us-president/647377/28 "2013-01-16T18:30:43Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > I have wondered if there is anything stoping Congress from defining a natural born citizen as someone who has been “naturalized for x years”. Perhaps SCOTUS might decline to review that based on the political question doctrine. Doubtful. SCOTUS accords wide latitude to Congress and the POTUS in areas relating to foreign policy (including immigration issues) under the political question doctrine, because they are explicitly committed to those branches in the Constitution. However, the “natural born citizen” requirement arises _only_ in the context of presidential qualifications - an issue _not_ committed to the other branches. One duty that is committed specifically to the judiciary under the US Constitution is “to say what the law is” - meaning the federal courts owe no deference at all to Congress on matters of constitutional interpretation. It’s worth noting that the “most successful” of the Taitz/birther lawsuits was dismissed on the basis of a different political question problem - that the federal court hearing the case had no constitutional authority to order the removal of a sitting president. > [@](#): > > Because Plaintiffs did not file this action until the day President Obama took office and was sworn in, any action that this Court takes in this matter is not merely against Senator Obama as a political candidate but against President Obama, this country’s sitting president. In this case, the redressability prong of standing is intimately intertwined with and influenced by another justiciability concept—political question and the separation of powers. Any action taken by the Court would necessarily infringe upon, at the very least, the Executive branch because it would involve a declaration regarding the qualifications of the President. Because the redressability analysis must consider what actions the Court may take against a sitting President, separation of powers concerns regarding the appropriate role of the judiciary sit at the forefront of the redressability analysis. > > Barnett v. Obama, SACV09-0082 DOC(ANX), 2009 WL 3861788 (C.D. Cal. 2009) ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2013, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-somebody-whose-status-as-a-natural-born-citizen-cannot-be-verified-become-us-president/647377/29 "2013-01-16T22:28:42Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > In particular, the children of US citizens born in Panama could gain US citizenship without ever having lived in the US. Sorry, I meant “born in the Canal Zone.” ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2013, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-somebody-whose-status-as-a-natural-born-citizen-cannot-be-verified-become-us-president/647377/30 "2013-01-16T22:37:42Z")
**Could somebody whose status as a natural-born citizen cannot be verified become US President?** I’m pretty sure the answer is no. I’m absolutely sure that it could not happen if the administration running the country at the time of the election is headed by the likes of Bush and Cheney, and the candidate in question is a Democrat. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2013, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-somebody-whose-status-as-a-natural-born-citizen-cannot-be-verified-become-us-president/647377/31 "2013-01-16T23:14:42Z")
Huh? ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2013, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-somebody-whose-status-as-a-natural-born-citizen-cannot-be-verified-become-us-president/647377/32 "2013-01-16T23:24:22Z")
> [@TonySinclair](#): > > **Could somebody whose status as a natural-born citizen cannot be verified become US President?** > I’m pretty sure the answer is no. I’m absolutely sure that it could not happen if the administration running the country at the time of the election is headed by the likes of Bush and Cheney, and the candidate in question is a Democrat. **TonySinclair**. I consider this a political comment rather than a factual answer to the OP. Try to keep from this in General Questions. No warning issued. **samclem** , moderator ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-somebody-whose-status-as-a-natural-born-citizen-cannot-be-verified-become-us-president/647377/33 "2013-01-17T00:06:37Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > **TonySinclair**. I consider this a political comment rather than a factual answer to the OP. Try to keep from this in General Questions. > > No warning issued. > > **samclem** , moderator Sorry, I found this thread by clicking on “New Posts,” and I didn’t notice it was in GQ. However, while I would not have mentioned Bush and Cheney by name, I honestly don’t see why it isn’t a valid answer otherwise — at least pragmatically, if not legally. Even if you flip it, and say a Dem is the current president and the Rep candidate’s citizenship is questionable, it is very difficult to believe that the presiding administration, with all its investigative resources, would not verify the candidate’s citizenship before assigning millions of taxpayer dollars worth of Secret Service protection to him, which IIRC happens no later than when he becomes his party’s nominee, i.e. several months before the election. The only possible reason I can think of withholding such information is to wait until days before the election, and springing an “October surprise” that would leave the opposing party in disarray, but I can’t believe either party would let it go that far. And it is absolutely inconceivable to me that they would actually allow an unverified candidate to be elected. ---
**Author:** ![Animastryfe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8797f3/32.png) [@Animastryfe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Animastryfe)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-somebody-whose-status-as-a-natural-born-citizen-cannot-be-verified-become-us-president/647377/34 "2013-01-17T00:08:41Z")
> [@JerrySTL](#): > > Evidently. I don’t understand. Are you saying that it is evident such a child would be eligible for presidentship? If so, why? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-somebody-whose-status-as-a-natural-born-citizen-cannot-be-verified-become-us-president/647377/35 "2013-01-17T00:11:55Z")
It would be a stretch to suggest the outgoing administration has the authority to determine who is qualified to replace it. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-somebody-whose-status-as-a-natural-born-citizen-cannot-be-verified-become-us-president/647377/36 "2013-01-17T00:19:05Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > It would be a stretch to suggest the outgoing administration has the authority to determine who is qualified to replace it. Nobody is claiming that they can decide whether he’s smart enough, or holds the correct opinions. But they certainly have the ability to verify his age and birth status, which are the qualifications specified by the Constitution. Not only the ability, but IMO the obligation. Do you seriously believe that if Arnold Schwarzenegger had run, and was popular enough that he would get the majority of votes, that someone in the government wouldn’t have stopped him long before the election was held? ---
**Author:** ![Iggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iggy/32/3364_2.png) [@Iggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggy)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-somebody-whose-status-as-a-natural-born-citizen-cannot-be-verified-become-us-president/647377/37 "2013-01-17T00:58:48Z")
US Immigration law does address the issue of foundlings who are found within the United States. I do not think that with this language in the law that American citizenship would be conferred to a foundling as in the OP’s example. > [@](#): > > a. Under INA 301(f) (8 U.S.C. 1401(f)) (formerly Section 301(a)(6)) INA), a > child of unknown parents is conclusively presumed to be a U.S. citizen\*\* if > found in the United States\*\* when under 5 years of age, unless foreign > birth is established before the child reaches age 21. > b. Under Section 201(f) of the Nationality Act of 1940, a child of unknown > parents, found in the United States, was presumed to have been a U.S. > citizen at birth until shown not to have been born in the United States no > matter at what age this might have been demonstrated. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-somebody-whose-status-as-a-natural-born-citizen-cannot-be-verified-become-us-president/647377/38 "2013-01-17T02:38:44Z")
> [@JerrySTL](#): > > Evidently. 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-somebody-whose-status-as-a-natural-born-citizen-cannot-be-verified-become-us-president/647377/39 "2013-01-17T03:40:07Z")
I think **JerrySTL** ’s comment is a joke. Or he’s a birther. I’m guessing it’s a joke. As in “well, Obama can’t be proven to be a natural-born citizen and he is the Prez, so clearly the answer to the OP’s question is yes” Ho ho. ISTM that taking the OP’s question in its purest, most theoretical form, comes down to an onus of proof question. Leaving aside political practicalities, what happens if it just can’t be proven either way? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-somebody-whose-status-as-a-natural-born-citizen-cannot-be-verified-become-us-president/647377/40 "2013-01-17T04:00:44Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > ISTM that taking the OP’s question in its purest, most theoretical form, comes down to an onus of proof question. Leaving aside political practicalities, what happens if it just can’t be proven either way? I would say that if it can’t be proved that someone has the qualifications to be President, then they are not eligible to be President. The same would apply if someone couldn’t prove themselves to be at least 35 years old, or to have been a resident for of the US for 14 years. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-somebody-whose-status-as-a-natural-born-citizen-cannot-be-verified-become-us-president/647377.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-somebody-whose-status-as-a-natural-born-citizen-cannot-be-verified-become-us-president/647377.md?page=3)