My mom stood tall and proud that day in 1972 inside the San
Benito County courthouse as she took her place next to several
other brand-new American citizens. In her thick German accent, she
echoed the judge’s words as he guided them through the swearing-in
ceremony:
”
I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely
renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign
prince, potentate, state or sovereignty, of whom or which I have
heretofore been a subject or citizen
…
”
My mom stood tall and proud that day in 1972 inside the San Benito County courthouse as she took her place next to several other brand-new American citizens. In her thick German accent, she echoed the judge’s words as he guided them through the swearing-in ceremony: “I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen …”
It was a shining moment in her life. After the short oath, she received a little American flag which she waved cheerfully as she hugged my father.
I was a mischievous five-year-old then, but I still recall the happy tears in my mom’s eyes the moment she could call herself a true citizen of this great land.
“I’m now an Ah-mare-EE-can,” she said with a bright smile. And as an American, she received all the Constitutional rights a “natural-born” citizen possessed – all of them except one, that is.
According to rules set down more than two centuries ago, mom could never serve this country as its chief executive.
Not that Gisela Cheek ever wished to find herself making the history-turning decisions in the Oval Office. She preferred knitting and gardening and caring for her cats to being the leader of the free world.
Politics wasn’t her bag. I highly doubt occupying the White House as the U.S. president was ever an aspiration for my Berlin-born mother.
I also doubt George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, James Madison and the rest of the Constitution crew meant any personal disrespect to my mom when they included Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 in that magnificent document: “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.”
To our modern minds, this seems an incredibly odd dictate to insert in our foundation document. If we are anything, we are a nation of immigrants. Everyone here has ancestral roots stretching to somewhere far away. Even the Native Americans – the first Americans – originally immigrated from Asia.
But overall, the Founding Fathers were reasonable men. And at the Constitutional Convention back in 1787, they had a real reason for penning their clause barring immigrants from the presidency. They feared the ever present threat of foreign influence over an official who possessed power as commander in chief of the armed forces.
The United States started off on shaky political ground. A foreign-born President might receive undue pressure from a foreign government that could put the newly conceived nation in jeopardy. Thus, members of the Constitutional Convention adopted the natural-born clause with absolutely no debate.
But in their foresight, the founders also included a mechanism in the Constitution to change the rules if necessity required. They knew they weren’t perfect. They knew their document wouldn’t be perfect for all times and all situations. To provide flexibility for future generations, they included an amending system.
We’ve now come to a point in our nation’s history where we should well consider amending our Constitution to allow foreign-born citizens the right to run for president.
Last July, “The Equal Opportunity To Govern Amendment” was submitted by Sen. Orrin Hatch to bestow this right on foreign-born residents who have been U.S. citizens for at least 20 years. A House version of this resolution was submitted in June and mandates a minimum of 35 years.
Considering the uninspiring presidential candidates our nation must choose between on Tuesday, the time seems truly appropriate for this proposed amendment to widen our pool of presidential possibilities. A foreign-born U.S. president who is personally acquainted with life in other countries could very well rekindle us to the promise and potential our own nation still holds.
There are many reasons to chuck the discriminatory clause of the Constitution and pass the proposed Hatch amendment. In fact, according to the U.S. Census, there are 12.5 million. That’s how many foreign-born, naturalized citizens presently live in the United States – about 4 percent of the population.
The main argument those opposing the amendment give is an insulting one. It claims foreign-born immigrants – if they do indeed reach the Oval Office – can’t be trusted with the welfare of this country. One recent letter to the editor of the San Jose Mercury News described a theoretical candidate of “Chinese descent” who might be reluctant to give the order to launch nuclear missiles at China because of personal blood-ties in that country. I see this as a reason for – not against – allowing immigrant citizens to run for the White House. Avoiding the total annihilation of the human race by global nuclear Armageddon just might possibly be considered a positive quality in a president.
Doubting the loyalty of immigrant U.S. citizens who might wish to run for president is not only insultingly illogical, it also damages the American democratic process by calling naturalized citizens “liars.” It slaps the face of every newly minted citizen who stands in front of the judge and makes the oath renouncing his or her allegiance and fidelity to a former homeland.
My mom did not lie when she made the citizen allegiance oath in the San Benito County Courthouse back in 1972. She proudly stayed loyal to her adopted country until the day she died. Through the sparkling eyes of an immigrant, she saw the hope and opportunity of her new homeland perhaps better than those of us who were born between American borders.
It’s shameful for a nation built by the love and labor of immigrants to blatantly discriminate against any single one of its foreign-born citizens. It’s ugly prejudice. Immigrants who become loyal U.S. citizens should no longer be treated like second-class Americans. They should have every right native-born Americans have – including the right, if elected, to serve as the president.
