Kamala Harris’s parents were not US citizens at the time of her birth so she is not eligible to be US president because she is not a ‘natural born citizen’.
Ms Harris was born in California, and meets the description of a ‘natural born citizen’, which means she is eligible to run.
The claim that US Vice President Kamala Harris is not eligible to become president has been circulating online following President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race and endorsement of Ms Harris.
But Ms Harris is eligible to run for president, a fact that is not affected by her parents’ citizenship at the time of her birth, as she was born in the US and fulfils other criteria like age and length of residency.
President Biden ended his campaign for re-election on 21 July and endorsed Ms Harris to succeed him as the Democratic candidate. She has reportedly garnered the support of a majority of Democratic delegates, which is enough to become the party’s nominee.
Some posts claim: “Kamala is NOT a ‘natural born Citizen’ per Art II Sec. 1 par 5 of US Constitution. Both parents were foreign nationals, NOT US citizens when she was born in Oakland, CA. She is missing 1 of 3 legs of the ‘natural born citizen test.’ Kamala can’t be president!” Posts with similar wording previously circulated in 2020.
Other posts say: “Unless proven with court documents, at the time of Kamala’s birth, her parents were not U.S. citizens. They were foreign students. At the time of her birth, she was the daughter of non-citizens. This makes her an anchor baby. She is not eligible to hold the office of President.”
Many posts include an image purporting to show Ms Harris’s birth certificate which was shared in 2020 and reportedly obtained from the Alameda County Recorder’s Office. As shown on this document, Ms Harris was born in Oakland, California, in 1964, to parents born in India and Jamaica, but it is not true that this means she is ineligible to be the president.
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The US Constitution says: “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.”
According to the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School, “anyone born on U.S. soil and subject to its jurisdiction is a natural born citizen, regardless of parental citizenship”. Moreover, the 14th Amendment (ratified in 1868) granted citizenship to all persons “born or naturalized” in the US.
The Legal Information Institute lists two rare exceptions for this—children born of “alien enemies in hostile occupation” and those whose parents are “diplomatic representatives”. But neither of these apply to Ms Harris, who therefore meets the description of a “natural born citizen” and is eligible for the role of president.
A letter signed by 40 law and politics scholars also published in 2020 that said “Senator Harris is a birthright citizen who meets the requirement of the Qualifications Clause” and claims to the contrary were “completely counter to the meaning of both Article II and Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment”. And multiple legal experts have told several media organisations over the last four years that the claim she isn’t eligible because of her parentage is false.
It’s also worth noting that the 12th Amendment to the constitution says “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States”. Ms Harris has been Vice President since January 2020.
The claim about Ms Harris’s eligibility may have stemmed from an opinion piece published in Newsweek in August 2020 headlined “Some Questions for Kamala Harris About Eligibility”.
That same month, former President and current Republican nominee, Donald Trump, was asked about the claims, and replied “I heard it today that she doesn’t meet the requirements” but added “I have no idea if that’s right”.
However, an editor’s note added to the article says it was “never intended to spark or to take part in the racist lie of Birtherism” (the name given to false conspiracy theories that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, even though he was born in Hawaii, a US state).
We’ve seen other misinformation relating to the US election, including a viral video of Ms Harris that uses impressionist’s audio and false claims relating to the assassination attempt of Mr Trump.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as partly false because Ms Harris is eligible to run for president, a fact that is not affected by her parents’ citizenship at the time of her birth, as she was born in the US.
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