Professor Chin Comments for CBS on Citizenship Requirements for Presidency
Professor Gabriel "Jack" Chin commented for a report on the CBS News website on the constitutional requirement that only "natural born citizens" of the United States may serve as president and how the issue of eligibility has surfaced repeatedly in recent presidential elections. Most recently, a debate has arisen as to whether Senator Ted Cruz, who was born in Canada to a U.S. citizen mother and Cuban immigrant father, would be eligible should he choose to run.
Chin said "there's no question" Cruz would be eligible, given that he had citizen status at birth. "It's no coincidence that most of these issues have come up in modern times," he added. "We are in an era of high immigration, we're certainly in an era of world travel and globalization, so the fact that somebody is of Cuban ancestry is certainly not disqualifying to be president."
Gabriel "Jack" Chin, who joined the King Hall faculty in 2011, is a prolific and much-cited criminal and immigration law scholar whose work has addressed many of the most pressing social issues of our time.