Naturalization

[Jonathan Buhacoff]

Summary of the proposal:

Stop using the term “naturalization” to mean the process of someone becoming a citizen.

Discussion:

In the United States, there is a legal process called “naturalization” which means the process of becoming a citizen of the United States, as opposed to staying as a legal resident but not a citizen.

However, currently when a person is “naturalized”, they are still not considered the same as a “natural-born” citizen and this needs to change. The most prominent example of this is in the Constitution, where it states “No Person except a natural born Citizen… shall be eligible to the Office of President”, and because of that many people would say that an immigrant who was “naturalized” is not eligible to be President because they are not “natural-born”, regardless of the plain and obvious meanings of these terms.

If it weren’t encoded in the Constitution, the requirement to be natural-born as a qualification for the office of President would violate the equal opportunity laws protecting people from discrimination based on their national origin.

If we make a distinction between what rights and privileges are available to people, it should be based on their acts and commitments as adults and not based on where they were born or who they were born to.

If there is a process for becoming a citizen, both natural-born and immigrant residents should have to follow that process to obtain citizenship. That process should be named, but it should not be named “naturalization”. We should not assume the allegiance of someone merely because they were born here, as is evident by the number of traitors throughout history, such as Benedict Arnold who was born in the Connecticut Colony, or Robert Hanssen who was born in Illinois, or Saville Sax who was born in New York, and so on. If the United States ever loses its democratic principles to an authoritarian regime, it will most likely be caused by a natural-born elected President who subverts the institutions of democracy, someone who appears to be following the rules until it’s too late. Anything else and we’d have a nation of patriots fighting back instead of following along.

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