If, as you claim, the Founders wanted to prevent 'any foreign influence on the Presidency', why then did they require a candidate to have only lived in the US 14 years, which for a candidate meeting the minimum age requirement would be only 40% of their life? Since the average age at which a President is elected is more than 55 years, that means that on average our former Presidents needed to only reside in the US for about 25% of their lives. Washington, himself, was 57 when he assumed office. He could have spent 43 years outside the US being 'foreign-influenced' and still have been eligible. Further, there is no 'both parents' requirement. Citizenship passed through the father, unless he was unknown, at the time of the writing of the Constitution and the status of the mother was irrelevant. A wife acquired the citizenship of her husband for all intents and purposes. Although the genders are treated equally in this regard now, only one citizen parent is required to confer citizenship at birth.
Your logic is badly broken and does not withstand objective scrutiny.
If Obama was born in Hawaii (or elsewhere in the US), he is a natural-born citizen. If he was born in a foreign country, then he is not. This is due to the very specific language in the Immigration and Nationality Act of June 27, 1952 regarding residency requirements for the mother of a child of an alien father. If born in the US he is a citizen by birth, and if born elsewhere, not a citizen at all.
Although the genders are treated equally in this regard now, only one citizen parent is required to confer citizenship at birth.
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SCOTUS ruling (Minor v Happersett) used the plural of ‘parent’ in defining natural born citizen. And there is a back story of Pres. Garfield appointing a USSC justice who later ruled on Garfield’s status as natural born citizen who had only 1 citizen parent at his birth, although his father became naturalized after he was born. And there was no polygamy involved as in Obama’s case. Here’s the link -
http://www.fourwinds10.com/siterun_data/government/us_constitution/news.php?q=1308252582
“If, as you claim, the Founders wanted to prevent ‘any foreign influence on the Presidency’, why then did they require a candidate to have only lived in the US 14 years, which for a candidate meeting the minimum age requirement would be only 40% of their life? Since the average age at which a President is elected is more than 55 years, that means that on average our former Presidents needed to only reside in the US for about 25% of their lives. Washington, himself, was 57 when he assumed office. He could have spent 43 years outside the US being ‘foreign-influenced’ and still have been eligible.”
All of the Founders indeed were not US citizens at the Founding, rather, British subjects. President Washington at 57 years of age lived almost all of his life as other than a US citizen. No?
The rest of your comment is without merit as justified by the above fact. All presidents since about 1840 or so ought to have been born of US citizen parents, either on US Soil or abroad on government business, with a few notable exceptions from history. This question ( US parentage of other than US citizenship at time of birth) was never resolved since President Arthur’s time, I think.
If there is no difference between native born and Natural born, then why would such learned and astute men include both terms in the constitution? I think they meant something by it, regardless.
Romney, Cruz etc, ought to be subject to strict scrutiny. On the other hand, folks like McCain, etc who were born overseas to US parents serving on government duty ( like my son too) indeed meet the Natural born requirement even if not “native” born via parentage and circumstance of duty. We ught ot agree that if Joe and Mary vacation to Canada and Billy comes early, he is not native nor natural born, but a US (and perhaps able to claim Canadian)citizen by laws of both nations.
What I do not comprehend is why folks pretend that an illegal who has a baby s a US citizen per the 14th ( written for freed slaves and their children, not illegal aliens), they are not under the “jurisdiction” ( cannot be compelled to fight in ur armed forces, nor vote etc) of the US, rather , but are ( ought to be anyway) subject to criminal law by their mere (illegal) presence).
Citizenship and the rule of law matters, that’s why there are laws....