The Presidency and the Meaning of Citizenship

No Person except a natural born Citizen . . . of the United States . . . shall be eligible to the Office of President. U.S. Constitution1 Who is the "us" in the U.S.? Leti Volpp2 The fundamental political relation of citizenship . . . [is] a relation of citizens within the basic structure of society, a structure we enter only by birth and exit only by death. John Rawls3 I. INTRODUCTION In "Only in America," songwriters Leiber and Stoller extolled the rags-to-riches American myth: Only in America Can a guy from anywhere Go to sleep a pauper and wake up a millionaire. Only in America Can a kid without a cent Get a break and maybe grow up to be President.4 Every American child has heard the stories: Abraham Lincoln was raised in a log cabin without the benefit of electricity and became the sixteenth President of the United States.5 Harry S. Truman was a failed shopkeeper and became President of the United States.6 William Jefferson Clinton was born fatherless in Hope, Arkansas and became President of the United States.7 We are told, as an expression of the openness of opportunity before us, the myth8 that every American child can grow up to be President.9 But my daughters are not part of the "every American child(ren)" who can become President. My daughters were born in China, adopted by an American citizen, and became American citizens on October 17, 2001 and March 24, 2005, respectively-the dates they landed on American soil.10 They cannot grow up to be President of the United States because Article II, Section 1, Clause 4 of the Constitution reads, "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."11 My daughters are not alone in being unable to attain the office of Commander-in-Chief. Thousands of children born abroad and subsequently adopted by American citizens are barred from the presidency, despite their "automatic" citizenship by virtue of the Child Citizenship Act of 2000.u Nor can naturalized citizens-like Henry Kissinger,13 Madeleine Albright,14 Arnold Schwarzenegger,15 and Jennifer Granholm16-become President. There is even some question about whether the biological children of American citizens, born abroad, can become President17 and whether American Indians, born on U.S. soil, qualify as natural-born citizens.18 On its face, the Constitution preserves the presidency for those born within the boundaries of the United States and, in this way, enshrines John Rawls's vision of a society that is truly "entered only by birth."19 Although citizenship is not limited to those born into American society, that society exhibits deep-seated suspicions of the foreignborn. Although naturalized citizens take an oath of allegiance to the United States20 and are required to renounce citizenship in other countries, strong notions persist that the foreign-born are not completely loyal to their new country.21 Immigration is viewed with suspicion, and many draw no distinction between legal and illegal immigrants.22 Similarly, society often draws no distinction between naturalized citizens and resident aliens, seeing only that both were born outside the United States.23 Contrary to these societal notions, the United States Supreme Court has stated, "Citizenship obtained through naturalization is not a second-class citizenship."24 Yet there are countless ways in which our concept of "true" citizenship resides in blood and birth, not in legal acts like naturalization. The constitutional restriction on the Office of the President is just one, albeit a powerful one. As one commentator notes, "The natural-born citizen requirement embodies the presumption that some citizens of the United States are a bit more authentic, a bit more trustworthy, a bit more American than other citizens of the United States, namely those who are naturalized. …