Natural-born-citizen clause (United States)
Clause of the US Constitution specifying natural born US citizenship to run for President / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Status as a natural-born citizen of the United States is one of the eligibility requirements established in the United States Constitution for holding the office of president or vice president. This requirement was intended to protect the nation from foreign influence.[1]
The U.S. Constitution uses but does not define the phrase "natural born Citizen" and various opinions have been offered over time regarding its exact meaning. The consensus of early 21st-century constitutional and legal scholars, together with relevant case law, is that natural-born citizens include, subject to exceptions, those born in the United States. As to those born elsewhere who meet the legal requirements for birthright citizenship, the consensus emerging as of 2016 was that they also are natural-born citizens.[2][3][4]
The first nine presidents and the 12th president, Zachary Taylor, were all citizens at the adoption of the constitution in 1789, with all being born within the territory held by the United States and recognized in the Treaty of Paris. All presidents who have served since were born in the United States. Of the 45[lower-alpha 1] individuals who became president, there have been eight that had at least one parent who was not born on U.S. soil.[5][6][7]
The natural-born-citizen clause has been mentioned in passing in several decisions of the United States Supreme Court, and by some lower courts that have addressed eligibility challenges, but the Supreme Court has never directly addressed the question of a specific presidential or vice-presidential candidate's eligibility as a natural-born citizen. Many eligibility lawsuits from the 2008, 2012, and 2016 election cycles were dismissed in lower courts due to the challengers' difficulty in showing that they had standing to raise legal objections. Additionally, some experts have suggested that the precise meaning of the natural-born-citizen clause may never be decided by the courts because, in the end, presidential eligibility may be determined to be a non-justiciable political question that can be decided only by Congress rather than by the judicial branch of government.[8][9]