If considering the 14th A, citizen at birth would not mean natural born citizen. The emancipation was aimed at making legal citizens of all those previously ‘held as slaves’ born on American soil or brought to American soil. Such a ‘statutized / naturalized’ citizen would not have citizen parents at their birth point but their children born here would absolutely be natural born citizens.
Well, I’m actually asking about US Code and how that may relate to the Section 1, Article 2 - the POTUS requirement of NBC:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/8/1401.html
TITLE 8 > CHAPTER 12 > SUBCHAPTER III > Part I > §1401.
I realize that at the time BO was born, the requirement was for Ann Dunham to have been “physically present in the United States or its outlying possessions for a period or periods totaling not less than ten years, at least five of which were after attaining the age of fourteen years”.
However, this clause changed to Five and Two (I think sometime in the 1980s?) and the clause was retroactive: “This proviso shall be applicable to persons born on or after December 24, 1952, to the same extent as if it had become effective in its present form on that date” —> Wouldn’t this have applied to BO?? My take is that wherever he was born, he was probably a US citizen (and perhaps a dual citizen of Great Britain) but that he was not necessarily a NBC.
In any case, if BO was born in Kenya, it is a major deception of massive proportions - even if he is a US citizen at birth - or are people suggesting that BO’s is ‘statutory citizenship’. I guess, that is what the SCOTUS should be deciding!!
I’d like to see David’s discussed link about this:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2306351/posts?page=6321#6321
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All that said, others are pointing out that ‘citizen at birth’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘natural born citizen’ - especially as the Founders intended that clause.
This is why I think this must rest in the judgment of the SCOTUS - which has heretofore PUNTED.
Correct, that's how I read it.
The emancipation was aimed at making legal citizens of all those previously held as slaves born on American soil or brought to American soil.
That's also how I read it. I also think that extending it to "anchor babies" is a gross misapplication.
Is there any other country in the world that does that? ie children of foreign nationals become citizens of the nation governing the place they are born in?