Can You Become US President?

Md. Fakrul Islam Chowdhury writes for DOT : 
Of course you can. If, you are as directed by Article Two, Section 1 of the United States Constitution
, a presidential candidate must be a natural born citizen of the United States, a resident for 14 years, and 35 years of age or older. These requirements do not prohibit women or minority candidates from running.
But if you don’t meet this criteria, unfortunately, you can’t run for the top office of USA.
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, on January 11, officially announced her plan to run for the Presidency of United States in 2020, a CNN report revealed.
Gabbard, if elected, would be the first Hindu woman to become president of the United States.
In an era when being Hindu and female disqualifies you to even enter into some holy temples in some parts of the world, i.e. India, what an achievement it would be, wouldn’t it?
When she was elected to Congress in 2012 (and then sworn in in 2013), she became both the first American Samoan and the first Hindu elected as a congressional representative in the United States.
37 years old, Gabbard, was born in Leloaloa, American Samoa in 1981 and moved to Hawaii when she was two.
According to the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), the people born in American Samoa – including those born on Swains Island – are “nationals but not citizens of the United States at birth.”
People born in American Samoa are not U.S. citizens unless one of their parents is a citizen.
So how does Gabbard still qualify to run for Presidency and potentially become the first Hindu and female President of USA?
Challenges in 2008 to the eligibility of both Senators John McCain and Barack Obama to be President have prompted numerous court decisions which appear to have validated the traditional, historical, and legal meaning of the term “natural born” citizen as one who is entitled to U.S. citizenship “by birth” or “at birth.”
This would include those born “in” the United States and under its jurisdiction (i.e. “native” born), even those born to alien parents; those born abroad to U.S. citizen-parents; or those born in other situations meeting legal requirements for U.S. citizenship “at birth.” Such term, however, would not include a person who was not a U.S. citizen by birth or at birth, and who was thus born an “alien” required to go through the legal process of “naturalization” to become a U.S. citizen.
When Gabbard was born, her mother was a natural born US citizen and her father was an American Samoan who became a naturalized citizen. Though American Samoans do not automatically have natural born citizenship (like Puerto Ricans do) they are considered US nationals. If she had been born to two US nationals in American Samoa, then she wouldn’t be a natural born citizen.
In fact, US law is fuzzier on this issue than most people realize. Most Americans born in a foreign country to an American parent who returned to live in the US are also considered “natural born”. (Ted Cruz falls into this category.)
There have been presidential candidates who were born on US territory, but outside the United States proper, and there was no real controversy about it. John McCain was born on a US military base in Panama while his father was stationed there. Barry Goldwater was born in Arizona Territory before Arizona became a state. Both were considered natural born citizens even though they weren’t born in what we usually think of as the United States.
There are other requirements to be qualified to become US president as well. The Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution also sets constraints on who may be elected to the Presidency:
“No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.”
Furthermore, before a President enter on the Execution of his Office, s/he must take the following Oath or Affirmation:
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
— Article II, section 1, clause 9; United States Constitution.
Interestingly, there is no requirement to swear in on a religious text or any text or any object what so ever and an oath does not necessarily requires the incumbent president to utter, “ So help me God” either.
The writer is Consulting Editor, Amader Notun Shomy