Nikki Haley is eligible to serve as president, despite false claims

Former President Donald Trump and others online are sharing posts that claim former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley is constitutionally ineligible to serve as president because her parents were not U.S. citizens when she was born. Haley, who also served as South Carolina’s governor, is one of five candidates vying for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.

“Nikki Haley is constitutionally ineligible to be president…or vice president,” Roger Stone, Trump’s former political advisor, said on X . That post links to an article claiming Haley is ineligible to be president because of her parents’ citizenship status at her birth. Trump shared a similar version of the claim on his social media platform Truth Social.

Is Nikki Haley ineligible to serve as president because her parents were not U.S. citizens when she was born? Nikki Haley was born in the United States, which makes her a natural born citizen and eligible to serve as president if elected. Under the U.S. Constitution , there are only three requirements to be president.

The person must be a natural born citizen, be at least 35 years old and be a resident of the U.S. for 14 years. Nikki Haley was born in Bamberg, South Carolina in 1972, according to an old campaign website and her biography given to Congress when she was nominated as U.N. ambassador . Under the 14th Amendment , anyone who is born in the U.S.

is automatically considered a natural born citizen, constitutional law expert Nicholas Creel told VERIFY. Since Haley was born in South Carolina, is over the age of 35 and has lived in the U.S. for more than 14 years, she is eligible to serve as president. According to Haley’s autobiography “Can’t Is Not an Option: My American Story” and a South Carolina newspaper report , Haley’s parents were born in the Punjab region of India and became citizens after she was born.

But Creel and Robert Peck, founder and president of the Center for Constitutional Litigation, said it doesn’t matter where Haley’s parents were born or when they became citizens. Natural born citizenship is not based on a parent’s citizenship. “The citizenship of her own parents is therefore immaterial to her own citizenship given her place of birth,” Creel, who is also an assistant professor of business law at Georgia College and State University, said.

Some of the claims, including Trump’s post, reference the 12th Amendment as the basis for Haley’s ineligibility to be president. But that amendment only outlines the process of electing a president – not citizenship requirements. The VERIFY team works to separate fact from fiction so that you can understand what is true and false.

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