Democratic candidate Joe Biden’s campaign on Friday, 14 August, lashed out at US President Donald Trump over his claim about Kamala Harris not being a US citizen, saying that he has resorted to "abhorrent" lies, AFP reported.
Adding yet another feather to his hat of unsubstantiated birther theories, President Trump on Thursday said he had heard that Democratic running mate Kamala Harris ‘doesn’t meet the requirements’ to become vice president.
Biden spokesman Andrew Bates said on Friday in a statement that Trump "has sought to fuel racism and tear our nation apart," , referring to the movement led by Trump that promoted the lie that Barack Obama was not born in the US.
"So it's unsurprising, but no less abhorrent, that as Trump makes a fool of himself straining to distract the American people from the horrific toll of his failed coronavirus response that his campaign and their allies would resort to wretched, demonstrably false lies in their pathetic desperation,” the statement went on to say, according to AFP.
Trump was referring to an article written by conservative law professor, in which he alleged that Harris didn’t meet the requirements as none of her parents were ‘naturalised US citizens’ at the time of her birth in 1964.
This claim has been proven wrong by multiple news reports that say that Harris is indeed a US citizen by birth.
What exactly did Trump Say?
“I heard it today that doesn’t meet the requirements. And, by the way, the lawyer that wrote that piece is a very highly qualified, very talented lawyer. I have no idea if that’s right. I would have assumed the Democrats would have checked that out.”President Trump
Are the allegations correct?
No, several US news outlets have fact-checked the article and Trump’s heresay to say that questions and allegations over Harris’ citizenship are false. Let’s first look at the facts:
- According to the US Constitution, the president and vice president must be natural-born US citizens and at least 35 years old.
- Section 1 of the 14th Amendment states “All persons born or naturalised in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”
So, Harris is a natural born citizen?
Yes, she is.
In 1964, Harris was born in Oakland, California. “Therefore, as a natural born citizen, she meets the Constitution's requirements to serve as vice president or president. There is no serious question about this,” says CNN.
According to CNN, The fact that her mother came from India and her father from Jamaica, “does not change the fact that she is indisputably eligible”.
You said Trump had many birther theories?
BBC quotes Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of Berkeley Law School as saying that "Under section 1 of the 14th Amendment, anyone born in the United States is a United States citizen...The Supreme Court has held this since the 1890s. Kamala Harris was born in the United States."
Yes, in 2011 President Trump had speculated that former President Barrack Obama might have been born in Kenya. Even though Obama produced a birth certificate in April 2011, stating that he was born in Hawaii, Trump refused to believe it, calling Obama a “fraud”.
Later in 2016, Trump credited himself for clearing the doubt over Obama’s birth certificate, saying that "I finished it. President Obama was born in the United States. Period."
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