What are the legal requirements for a person to serve as president of the United States? What is the exception to the “natural born” requirement?

What are the legal requirements for a person to serve as president of the United States? What is the exception to the “natural born” requirement?

It is required in the Constitution that a person wishing to become President must meet some minimum requirements. These are that he or she must at least 35 years old. Along with this, it is required that the individual has lived in the United States for 14 years or more consecutively before taking office. It is demanded in the Constitution that a person be a natural born American, which is a somewhat difficult term to interpret concretely. However, this interpretation has been understood in a certain way throughout Presidential history.

The natural born requirement, in essence, means that the person seeking the office of President was not a naturalized citizen, or in other words, that person was not born as a citizen to another country, and went through the naturalization process to later become a United States citizen. There is some debate with how the idea of natural born applies to a person who was an American citizen upon birth (American parents) even if the person was born in another country. Some believe that it is required that a person be born on American soil in order for him or her to be considered an American.