Tempest Tossed

"They're coming to America ... 
"There's nothing like America ...
"Land of opportunity ..." -- Neil Diamond, 1980

   For those who haven't read the Constitution lately, it does not require that a presidential candidate be born in the USA.
   Specifically, there are just three qualifications listed in the Constitution (Article II, Section 1, Paragraph 5) for a candidate for the presidency.
   1/ The person must be at least 35 years of age.
   2/ The candidate must be a "natural born citizen." The document does not specify "native born," and here's why:
   3/ The candidate must have been a resident of the United States for 14 years.

   Clearly, a candidate could be born to at least one U.S. citizen anywhere in the world and spend his or her first 20 years in some other country before taking up residency in the U.S. Then, some 14 years later, on reaching the age of 35, the citizen can run for president.
   
   Take note that Republican candidate Ted Cruz was born in Canada to an American mother and a Cuban father before moving to the U.S. as a child with his parents.
   Note also that John McCain, who twice was a candidate for president, was born in Panama when his father, a Navy officer, was stationed in the Canal Zone, a territory leased from the nation of Panama.
   George Romney -- father of Mitt Romney and also a Republican presidential candidate -- was born in Mexico when his parents were assigned there as Mormon missionaries.
   Yet there were no major challenges to the citizenship status or presidential qualifications of any of these three Republican candidates.
   It was only after Barack Obama, a Democrat, became president that a big fuss was made of his citizenship, with the false claim that he was born in Kenya and therefore was not eligible.
   But he was eligible, on  all three counts. Even if he had been born elsewhere, it would not have mattered, because his mother was born in Kansas. Moreover, young Barack was born in Hawaii, so he holds U.S. citizenship on that basis alone, unlike some Republican candidates, who actually were born outside the U.S.
   By the way, who remembers the campaign to nominate weight lifter, movie actor, and California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to be president?
   It would have taken a constitutional amendment to make that happen, since he was neither a native born nor a natural born citizen of the U.S. He did, however, acquire U.S. citizenship the same way millions of other immigrants did. And as a citizen, he was eligible to hold any public office in America -- except the presidency.
   So put all this in the context of the current flap over immigrants, and remember that some of the greatest of American citizens were immigrants, and their offspring carried on the tradition of loyalty and citizenship.
   Contrast that with the attitude of the current occupant of the Oval Office, who actually married an immigrant -- twice. Moreover, his mother was an immigrant, from Scotland, and his grandparents were immigrants from Germany.
  Consider also that his son-in-law's grandparents were immigrant survivors of the Holocaust.
   One wonders, then, why this president is so wound up with opposition to those attempting to come to America from across the nation's southern border, and why he treats Puerto Rico and its citizens as somehow not part of America. It is, and has been for more than 100 years, when the U.S. took the island after defeating Spain in a war.
   A one-word answer comes to mind:
   Racism.