Albright: Let foreign-born citizens lead

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Friday that foreign-born citizens should be allowed to run for president, a reform that would require amending the Constitution.

“We are a country of immigrants. I think that it would be not a bad thing to try to figure out how to allow foreign-born people to become president,” Albright told the Little Rock Rotary Club.

Supporters of California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger have started an effort to amend the Constitution to allow immigrants to run for president. Schwarzenegger was born in Austria. Albright was born in Czechoslovakia.

Albright said foreign-born candidates would still have to meet certain requirements. “I think there has to be some very long period of time that somebody has lived in the U.S.”