With all the chanting about the four congresswomen who, the president says, should "go back to where they came from" -- though all are U.S. citizens and only one was not born here -- what would happen if that mandate were applied to everyone in Congress?
Result: Many members of the current Congress, both Senate and House -- would have to leave. Some 29 of these duly elected officials were not born in the U.S. Moreover, more than 12 percent of all the members of Congress are either immigrants themselves or are children of immigrants.
The Constitution does not require that officials be "native born" and only the president must be "natural born." If candidates for presidents were required to be born here, that would have ruled out Ted Cruz (Canada), John McCain (Panama) and George Romney (Mexico). All Republicans.
For several days now, news media have been checking the status of elected members of Congress, updating their lists of who was born where. It's nothing new, since the lists are updated regularly, and I found at least one that listed the birthplaces of every member of Congress going back to the First Congress in 1789.
As for "sending back" all those who were not born here, does that include the president's wife? The current one, that is, who came here on a work visa and overstayed it, eventually getting some favorable treatment to stay and acquire citizenship.
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