Sen. Dick Durbin Tells Group of Illegal Aliens: You Could be President One Day

Remember the buzz surrounding Arnold Schwarzenegger a few years ago, when the hot topic was whether he was upset that he couldn't run for president because he wasn't a natural born citizen? It was a short-lived controversy, as Schwarzenegger understood the Constitution forbade it, and for the most part he was fine with it.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) might want to get a civics lesson from Schwarzenegger.

During a Tuesday hearing on the DREAM Act, Durbin recognized a group of young illegal aliens in attendance and said one of them may be "our president" some day.

“When I look around this room, I see America's future, our doctors, our teachers, our nurses, our engineers, our scientists, our soldiers, our congressmen, our senators, and maybe our president,” he said, after the group stood and was recognized:

But there's just one problem. As Schwarzenegger understands, the Constitution doesn't allow that. CNS News explains:

Making the young people Durbin was speaking of eligible to become president would require more than passage of the DREAM Act, however. It would require a constitutional amendment.

As the U.S. Constitution now stands, even legal immigrants are not eligible to serve as president. Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5 of the Constitution says: “No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President.”

Pesky thing, that Constitution.

The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act (or DREAM) offers a conditional path to citizenship for some illegal aliens. As CNS explains, it would "authorize the Secretary of Homeland Security 'to cancel the removal of, and adjust to conditional nonimmigrant status, an alien who … entered the United States before his or her 16th birthday and has been present in the United States for at least five years' subject to certain conditions, including that the person has been admitted to college or earned a high school diploma."

(H/T: Gateway Pundit)