DeWitt recommended to President Franklin D. Roosevelt that the US government intern Japanese-Americans because he believed they were conspiring with Japanese nationals to sabotage the United States. He responded with a racist remark , stating that a Japanese American is still Japanese. We are not alone. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, a strong conservative. Randall Kennedy is the Michael R. You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page , on Twitter usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter.
To respond to a column, submit a comment to letters usatoday. Facebook Twitter Email. Remove the natural born citizen clause from the Constitution. Let immigrants be president. Repealing the citizenship clause may get easier as xenophobia recedes and people realize how ridiculous it is. Already it has backers from right to left. Randall Kennedy and Ilya Somin Opinion contributors. More than The natural-born-citizen clause violates a central principle of American democracy: All citizens should have equal rights.
When written, the Constitution embraced this principle but failed to protect the rights of women and of racial and ethnic minorities. The 14th, 15th, and 19th Amendments have been added to protect these groups. The next step is to remove the natural-born-citizen clause. The Founding Fathers included the natural-born-citizen clause so no foreign prince could buy his way into the presidency.
This concern is no longer relevant. Some people say we still need this clause to ensure that the President is loyal to the country, but naturalized citizens are a very loyal group. Moreover, the Constitution allows any natural-born citizen, loyal or not, to run for President and relies on voting rights and the judgment of the American people to keep disloyal people from being elected. These protections would work just as well if we let naturalized citizens run for President, too.
Herter was born in Paris to expatriate American parents. The same was true for Sen. Lowell Weicker, who toyed with a run in Barry Goldwater, the Republican presidential nominee, was born in Arizona Territory three years before it became a state.
Michigan Gov. George Romney was born in Mexico to US citizen parents who had left the country to escape a federal prohibition on polygamy. He sought the Republican presidential nomination in but withdrew long before the convention. In , the US Senate passed a nonbinding resolution declaring him to be a natural-born citizen.
While his natural-born status was never actually in dispute, that did not prevent the growth of a vast conspiracy-theory industry.
His parents were living in Canada temporarily. Cruz was considered a dual US-Canadian citizen at birth; he later disavowed his Canadian citizenship. Nonetheless, he also was subjected to charges that he was ineligible to serve as president. Let Americans choose There are about 20 million naturalized citizens in the United States. Next Up In Mischiefs of Faction. Delivered Fridays. Thanks for signing up! Check your inbox for a welcome email.
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