I know the most probable immediate beneficiary of such a change would likely be California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. But I’m coming around to the view — expressed today by (foreing-born) former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright — that naturalized American citizens should be eligible to run for president.
Certainly, a long period of citizenship should be required — perhaps twenty or twenty-five years. But this is a nation of immigrants. And with the great surge of immigration in recent decades, this provision of the constitution leaves a substantial minority of American citizens permanently ineligible to serve in the highest office in the land. That is increasingly difficult to justify.
