What kind of "American" is Kamala Harris

Here we go again. Senator Kamala Harris' hat barely landed in the ring when questions arose about her citizenship. Not ethnicity, but citizenship. According to Wikipedia, Ms Harris "identifies as African-American", and appears to have a good claim to being Black American, Asian American, Jamaican American and Indo-American. (The last should not to be confused with "Indian American", or "Native American", as claimed by Fauxcahontas.) But is she "American American", in the sense of being entitled to a US passport, or to succeed Slow Joe Biden should he fall permanently asleep while occupying the Oval Office?

The question is citizenship. As Walt reported earlier this week, Ms Harris was undeniably born in the Excited States of America, Oakland CA. Her parents, Donald Harris (Jamaican) and Shyamala Gopalan (Indian) were students at UC Berkeley at the time. And therein lies the problem. Neither of her parents was a naturalized American citizen!

In "Some Questions for Kamala Harris About Eligibility", published in Newsweek (not known for being unfriendly to liberals) on August 12th, Dr John C. Eastman, Professor of Law at Chapman University, cites the 12th Amendment to the US Constitution, which provides that "no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States." Article II of the Constitution specifies that "[n]o person except a natural born citizen...shall be eligible to the office of President."

Isn't Ms Harris, having been born in (ugh, brrr) Oakland in 1964, a natural born citizen from location of birth? The 14th Amendment says so, according to Snopes (there's a red flag, right there) and others, and the Supreme Court so held in the 1898 case of United States v Wong Kim Ark.

But... argues Prof Eastman, the 14th Amendment provides that "all persons born...in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens." Those who claim that birth alone is sufficient overlook the second phrase. The person must also be "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States, which means subject to the complete jurisdiction, not merely a partial jurisdiction such as that which applies to anyone temporarily sojourning in the United States. In other words, if the person is "just visiting", that doesn't count!

Wong Kim Ark is not to the contrary, adds Prof Eastman. At issue there was a child born to Chinese immigrants who had become lawful, permanent residents in the United States. "Domiciled" was the legally significant word used by SCOTUS. That was the extent of the Court's holding, as opposed to broader language that was non-binding dicta. Indeed, the professor says, "the Supreme Court has never held that anyone born on United States soil, no matter the circumstances of the parents, is automatically a US citizen."

If Ms Harris' parents were lawful permanent residents at the time of her birth, under the actual holding of Wong Kim Ark, she should be deemed a natural-born citizen at birth, and thus eligible for highest office. But if they were just temporary visitors -- in the country on student visas -- then "derivatively from her parents" Ms Harris was not subject to the complete jurisdiction of the United States at birth, but instead owed her allegiance to a foreign power or power -- Jamaica and/or India -- and was therefore not entitled to birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment as originally understood.

It will be recalled, as Walt told you, that Ms Harris' mother moved, with her two daughters, to the English-speaking enclave of Westmount, Québec, Canada, where Ms Harris graduated from high school in 1981, when she was 17 years old. Under US law at the time, one or both of her parents would need to have become naturalized American citizens before Ms Harris' 16th birthday in order for her to become naturalized herself.

Donald Harris' bio page at Stanford University identifies his citizenship status as "Jamaica (by birth); U.S. (by naturalization)." But, says Prof Eastman, there is some dispute over whether he was in fact ever naturalized, and it is also unclear whether -- Shyamala Gopalan Harris -- ever became a naturalized citizen.

If neither was ever naturalized (or at least not before Ms Harris' 16th birthday), then she would have had to become naturalized herself in order to be a citizen. That does not appear to have ever happened, yet without it, she could not have been "nine Years a Citizen of the United States" before her election to the United States Senate.

Prof Eastman concedes that such arguments may be dismissed as mere lawyerly nitpicking. It would help, though, if Ms Harris and her parents (who have not yet been heard from, as nearly as I can tell), came forward with papers proving her eligibility, just as Barack Hussein Obama [Who? Ed.] eventually produced what purported to be a birth certificate proving that he was born in Hawaii to a parent who was... Well, I forget the rest, but Mr Obama eventually became POTUS, after which the question was moot.

Prof Eastman concedes that could well happen with Ms Harris too. In the US of A, just as in Russia and Zimbabwe, winning an election makes everything all right.

Disclaimer: Newsweek has added this footnote to Prof Eastman's article: Eastman ran in the 2010 Republican primary as a candidate for attorney general [of California]; he lost to Steve Cooley, who lost to Kamala Harris in the general election.