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South Carolina Republican Rep. Nancy Mace is proposing a constitutional amendment that would prohibit individuals born outside the United States from serving in Congress or on the federal judiciary.
Mace, a Republican candidate for governor of South Carolina, announced the proposal on social media while criticizing several foreign-born Democratic lawmakers.
“Ilhan Omar, Shri Thanedar, Pramila Jayapal, all born in foreign countries, none were citizens by birth,” Mace wrote.
“All sitting in the United States Congress. All making clear every single day their loyalty is not to America,” she added.
The proposed amendment, introduced as a joint resolution in Congress, would also apply to Senate-confirmed federal positions.
“We just introduced a long overdue joint resolution proposing a constitutional amendment to require Members of Congress, federal judges, and Senate-confirmed officers to be natural born citizens. This is the very same standard the President and Vice President are already required to meet,” she continued.
“The people writing America’s laws, confirming America’s judges, and representing America on the world stage should have one loyalty: America. Not any other country. For too long we have allowed foreign born members to hold seats in this government while making clear they are America last, not America first. We see it every day. This constitutional amendment will put an end to it,” the congresswoman concluded.
Mace’s proposal would face significant hurdles to becoming part of the Constitution. A constitutional amendment must secure support from two-thirds of both the House and Senate and then be ratified by three-fourths of the states. The Constitution also allows amendments to be proposed through a convention called by two-thirds of state legislatures, although that process has never successfully produced an amendment.
Currently, 19 members of Congress were born outside the United States, although some are considered natural-born citizens because they had at least one American parent.