Abstract
Our Constitution has a deferred maintenance problem because we have fallen out of the habit of tending to its upkeep ourselves. The silver lining is a double benefit from any constitutional maintenance projects that we undertake now. These projects are good not only for what they do to our Constitution, but also for making us exercise self-government muscles that have atrophied from civic sloth.
Fortunately, the time has never been better to repeal one of our Constitution’s most pointlessly exclusionary provisions. The President of the United States is married to a naturalized citizen. And nobody can legitimately question the patriotism of the First Lady of the United States, Melania Trump. She flies on Air Force One with the President and represents our country both at home and abroad. As an American citizen, she is as much an American as the President himself. This fortuitous circumstance is just one reason it might be possible to eliminate what the Supreme Court has identified as the only legal difference between naturalized and natural born citizens— eligibility for the presidency.
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2018
Recommended Citation
Kevin C. Walsh, The "Irish Born" One American Citizenship Amendment, 13 Duke J. of Const. L. & Pub. Pol’y 57 (2018).
Included in
Constitutional Law Commons, Immigration Law Commons, President/Executive Department Commons