Is US VP Kamala Harris Ineligible to Run For President? No, Viral Claim is False

Kamala Harris has a birthright citizenship and is constitutionally qualified to run for president.

Fact-Check: The claim is false, Harris is eligible to run for office. 

(Source: The Quint) 

A photo of US Vice President Kamala Harris‘ birth certificate has gone viral on social media, which shows her place of birth as Alameda County in California.

The claim: It is being shared to claim that Harris was born to non-American parents in the USA, making her ineligible to hold office as the President of the United States.

An archive of the post can be found here. 

(Source: Facebook/Screenshot) 

(Archives of more claims on social media can be seen here and here.)

Is it true?: No. As per American laws, a person born to immigrants on American soil is a citizen by birthright and can run for public office provided that they have resided in the country for the past 14 years.

How did we find out the truth?: First, we looked for citizenship laws for children born to legal or illegal immigrants in the US.

• This led us to a document titled ‘Myths and Facts about Birthright Citizenship’ on the American Immigration Council’s website.

• On its fourth page, it mentioned that “children of legal and illegal immigrants born in the United States are U.S. citizens by virtue of the fact that they are born on US soil.“

Here is a preview of the document. 

(Source: American Immigration Council) 

To further learn if birthright citizenship laws impacted one's eligibility to run for public office in the US, we ran a keyword search using ’can immigrant children become President’ as the search term.

This took us to the website of the US Constitution, which carried an article regarding ’qualifications for the Presidency’.

The fifth clause of the Article listed three requirements for a person to run for President.

• 1. They should be US citizens.

• 2. They should be at least 35 years old.

• 3. They should have resided in the US for at least 14 years.

Here is the preview of the document. 

(Source: US Constitution) 

• According to US VP Kamala Harris’ bio page on The White House’s website, she has been working in public offices since 1990, as a prosecutor at Alameda County’s District Attorney’s office.

• This shows that Harris has been a resident in the US for at least 34 years.

Here is the preview of the document. 

(Source: The White House) 

Conclusion: US Vice President Kamala Harris was born to immigrant parents, but since she was born in the US and has stayed there for more than 14 years, she is qualified to run for President.

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