Residents born in the territory are considered U.S. citizens but what rights they are entitled to – such as running for president or voting in national elections – was the subject Thursday night at a constitutional rights forum held at the Capitol Building on St. Thomas.
Leading the discussion was attorney Neil Weare, president of the Washington, D.C.-based We the People project, which has been fighting a case on behalf of seven American Samoans that are challenging federal laws that deny citizenship to the territory’s residents. According several online law sites, individuals born in American Samoa are considered U.S. nationals but have to be naturalized in order to become U.S. citizens.
Nationals who are not citizens, according to U.S. Code, cannot vote or hold elected office, but they can work and live on the mainland without restrictions or apply for citizens like any other “resident alien.”
While that is different in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Delegate Donna M. Christensen said at Thursday night’s forum that there are still some other “unsettled” matters, such as whether V.I. residents can run for president.
“When you go to speak to students in the schools, you want to say to them that they can be anything they want to be, but you stop short – can they really be president?” Christensen asked. “I get that all the time and I look at it as unsettled law because the statutes refer to natural born U.S. citizens.”
According to numerous online encyclopedia entries and case law references, there is currently no real definition for the term “natural born,” which leaves the phrase up to interpretation. Weare said Thursday, for example, that the question of whether someone born in a U.S. territory can run for president was debated with Sen. John McCain, born in the American Panama Canal Zone in 1936, but never answered because it has not been legally challenged.
There was back and forth on both sides when McCain ran for president, however, and Weare said that the bottom line for his organization is that no matter where you are born, as long as it is a U.S. jurisdiction, the Fourth Amendment right to citizenship applies.
Christensen, who sits on the We the People project’s board along with former Gov. Charles W. Turnbull, said bringing the debate to the Virgin Islands is timely, especially as the territory prepares for a number of milestones, including the possibility of getting its own Constitution.
Sen. Shawn-Michael Malone, who brought Weare in for the forum, said Thursday that beginning the dialogue locally about what it means to be American in a U.S. territory will also help residents see what they stand to lose by keeping the Revised Organic Act of 1954 as their governing document.
“Those of us living in the territories are citizens by statute and, in the case of the Virgin Islands, that is laid out in the Revised Organic Act of 1954,” Malone said. “Our counterparts on the mainland, however, are considered natural born citizens so it could be an issue – I can’t put it any plainer – that at any time, a member of Congress can introduce legislation to repeal the Organic Rights and whatever rights or status we have.”
“I don’t think it is going to happen easily, but the fact that the majority of Congress can do that without the two-thirds vote it takes to amend the Constitution has me concerned,” Malone said.
About 15 residents attended the forum held at the Earle B. Ottley Legislative Hall and, responding to the dialogue, said they did not necessarily agree with Weare. While some talked about the advantages the U.S. Virgin Islands has, such as having its own Olympic Committee, others spoke about preserving the local history.
Another resident, Krim Ballentine, who has filed a similar court case within the territory, said he does not subscribe to Weare’s “legalese” but feels that the concept of who is “natural born” is really at the heart of the territorial rights argument. Ballentine said he feels that the phrase is a racial snub to native citizens who aren’t white and that the laws governing the territories and the rights of citizens should be declared unconstitutional.
