Non-born Americans, or naturalized citizens, are not supposed to be president. However, this is actually an unofficial rule. The situation of a president being elected who was born in a foreign country simply never happened. If such event ever occured it probably depends where the president was born and who he is.

Canadian-born Americans can most likely become president. Ted Cruz was born in Canada and ran for president in 2016. There was never really a controversial opinion about Cruz’s legitimacey as candidate. Cruz ended up losing against Donald Trump in the primary Republican elections. However, the lack of interest in Cruz’s place of birth suggests that nobody would stop a Canadian-born from becoming US president.

On the other hand, traditionally, the US president has to be Christian, therefore people born in certain territories may have issues with becoming US president. In fact, presidents needed to be Protestant and John F. Kennedy, who was Catholic was the only non-Protestant president of the US. In other words, everyone born in a Catholic European country was somewhat stigmatized.

In modern days, Muslims are often stigmatized in the US. Therefore, a presidential candidate born in the Middle East or North Africa have low chances to be accepted as president. Such issue can be seen with the presidency of Barack Obama who was accused to born outside the US. The false claim probably originated from the fact that Obama’s father was Muslim and that he has an Arabic middle name, Hussein. Therefore, it was assumed that Obama was born in Africa followed by an investigation even though he is actually Christian and was born in Hawaii.