Is Kamala Harris ineligible to be U.S. president? No, viral claim is false!

What is the claim?

Several social media users have shared a photo of Kamala Harris's birth certificate, claiming the vice president of the United States is ineligible to hold the office of president because her parents were not U.S. citizens at the time of her birth.

This viral claim has spread across X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook. One X post, which garnered over 810,000 views and 14,000 likes, claimed that Harris is ineligible to serve as president because she is an "anchor baby" whose parents were foreign students in California. The term "anchor baby" is a derogatory phrase for a child born in the U.S. to immigrant parents.

 Screenshots of the users posting a claim that Harris is not eligible to hold the office of U.S. President. (Source: X/Modified by Logically Facts)

Although some of these posts have since been removed, archived versions remain accessible and can be found here, here, here, and here.

Multiple media reports citing sources suggest Harris is expected to be a leading contender for the presidency in the 2024 election cycle, should incumbent President Joe Biden step aside as the Democratic candidate due to mounting political pressure.

However, while the social media posts share Harris' authentic birth certificate, their claims about her presidential eligibility are unfounded.

What are the facts?

We verified Harris' birth certificate, which was made public by the U.S.-based media outlet Mercury News in 2020. The document matches the one circulating on social media and confirms that Harris was born on October 20, 1964, in Oakland, California. This makes her a natural-born citizen of the U.S., according to the Fourteenth Amendment, Section 1, which states:

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

While Harris' birth certificate indicates that her parents were born in Jamaica and India, respectively, this is irrelevant to her citizenship status as she was born on U.S. soil.

According to the Cornell Legal Information Institute, an individual's citizenship status is typically independent of their parents' citizenship. Under the 14th Amendment's Naturalization Clause and the Supreme Court case of United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 US. 649, "anyone born on U.S. soil and subject to its jurisdiction is a natural born citizen, regardless of parental citizenship. This type of citizenship is referred to as birthright citizenship."

What about Harris’ eligibility for the office of president?

Harris is fully eligible to hold the office of President of the United States. The constitutional requirements for presidential candidacy, as outlined in Article II, Section 1, Clause 5, are as follows:

"No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States."

Harris meets all these criteria:
1. She is a natural-born citizen of the U.S.
2. She is over 35 years of age.
3. She has resided in the country for more than 14 years.

It's worth noting that this is not the first time claims related to Harris' citizenship have circulated on social media. Similar claims appeared in 2020 and 2023 (archived here and here). 

The verdict

The social media posts claiming that Kamala Harris is ineligible to hold the office of President of the United States because her parents were not U.S. citizens at the time of her birth are false. The Fourteenth Amendment, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution, guarantees citizenship to all persons born on U.S. soil, making Harris fully eligible for the presidency.