Foreign-born presidential hopefuls face unlikely future

The fantasy of living in the White House, the dream of many a
presidential hopeful, isn’t likely to become a reality
anytime soon for foreign-born citizens.

From college campuses to Congress, many people have made efforts
to amend the Constitution and allow foreign-born citizens to run
for president, but the road to amendment has proven rocky for many
of them.

The U.S. Constitution prohibits all but natural born citizens
from running for president, and the difficulty inherent in
successfully bringing about a constitutional amendment is a huge
barrier to that changing, analysts say.

While recently launched Web sites and current bills in Congress
are calling for the amendment of the U.S. Constitution to allow
foreign-born citizens to run for president, the feasibility of an
amendment happening in the near future is low, says Laura Stoker,
an associate professor of political science at UC Berkeley.

“It’s hard to amend the Constitution, period,”
Stoker said.

Stoker said this particular constitutional amendment is
“highly unlikely,” noting the current “period of
xenophobia” and “fear of people outside our
borders,” which have been heightened especially by the
terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The U.S. Constitution says, “No person except a natural
born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States … shall be
eligible to the Office of President.”

Widespread discontent with the consequences of this clause is
manifesting itself in the introduction of two separate bills into
Congress.

One is the S.J. Res. 15 by Senator Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, which
proposes making eligible for the presidency a person who has been a
U.S. citizen for 20 years.

The other is A.J. Res. 104.IH by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher,
R-Calif., proposing allowing eligibility for the presidency to
those who have been citizens for 35 years.

Experts doubt the bills will make any major impact.

“It’s extremely implausible” that they will be
passed, Stoker said.

The difficulty in changing the Constitution has not deterred the
efforts of some politicians and members of the public who find the
issue worth pursuing in the name of equality.

The work is necessary as far as Marshall Miller, a current UCLA
student, and Joshua Mikael, a UCLA graduate, are concerned.

The two created OperationArnold.com, a bipartisan Web site
promoting the amendment of the Constitution to allow California
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to run for president by 2008.

While their main priority is getting Schwarzenegger into the
White House, the two said the process of having the Constitution
amended is just as important.

“It’s a ridiculous restriction. … It’s like
granting women the right to vote or granting civil rights,”
Miller said.

“This is unjust and a constitutional amendment that
definitely needs to be ratified,” Mikael said in
agreement.

Their Web site features message boards and a petition for the
amendment of the Constitution to allow foreign-born citizens to run
for president after having citizenship for 20 years.

They plan to hand the petition over to Hatch, who, in his Oct. 5
statement before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, called
the restriction, “decidedly un-American” and called on
his fellow representatives “to begin the process that can
result in removing this artificial, outdated, unnecessary and
unfair barrier.”

Hatch also mentioned that the natural-born-citizen requirement
was created out of concern about European monarchs being imported
to rule the United States when the country was founded.

None of these arguments detract from the fact that it is a
monumental task to change the Constitution, said Stoker.

For an amendment to take effect, it first has to pass both
halves of the legislature by a two-thirds majority in each, after
which every state votes on it.

If the bill is approved in 38 of the 50 states, it can become an
amendment.

Then there is the issue of whether or not citizens would vote
for a person who is not a natural-born citizen of the United
States.

Chris Chen, a second-year psychobiology student, says that he
would not, “just in case there’s other motives and
goals that they want to achieve based on self interest.”

“No amount of time here will ever justify the level of the
foundation that person has built in his place of origin. Even if
the person dislikes where they came from, it doesn’t matter.
Our interests should be as much as possible tied to the place where
we live,” Chen said.

Other students disagree with that sentiment.

“America is a land of immigrants. Therefore, any immigrant
should be allowed to be president of the U.S.,” said Daniel
Chang, a second-year pre-business/economics student.

Chang noted that “it is a very difficult thing to become
president, anyhow.”

People such as Mikael and Miller are confident that the upsurge
in available technology and communication mediums, particularly the
Internet, will be able to help pull off what they themselves called
a “monumental task.”

The issue is “right here, it’s not going to stall
out,” said Miller. “There’s too much press behind
it.”