Posted on 03/11/2010 8:25:03 AM PST by kyright
Going with the new trend of adding -er to the end of terms describing groups of people with similar beliefs ungrounded in commonly-accepted reality, we need to add Birthright Citizenship-ers and Dual Citizenship-ers to the mix, along with the Birth-ers.
The reason to group them togetherthey march to the same drumbeatall apparently believe that birth in the US is all that is necessary for anyone to have US citizenship. The only point on which they seem to disagree is whether a long-form or a short-form birth certificate is sufficient proof. (Many of the so-called birthers will argue the finer point of natural born type of citizenship for the Presidency, but that will be addressed here later.) Ironically, those who loudly ridicule the birthers who shout show me the birth certificate find themselves also relying on the birth certificate. They can all march together to Washington DC with Philip Berg, hand in hand, waving their certificates.
The addition of the -er to these other groups is merited because the notion of Birthright Citizenshipautomatically granted to all children born on US soil to parents who are not US citizensis not grounded in the reality of the Constitution. And even though dual citizenship is now tolerated, the oath for US naturalized citizens specifically disallows allegiance to any other country.
(Excerpt) Read more at thepostemail.com ...
If you don't have a citizen father, you don't have a natural born child. The 14th amendment created broad native-born citizenship, but it didn't redefine natural born citizenship.
It thus clearly appears that by the law of England for the last three centuries, beginning before the settlement of this country, and continuing to the present day, aliens, while residing in the dominions possessed by the crown of England, were within the allegiance, the obedience, the faith or loyalty, the protection, the power, and the jurisdiction of the English sovereign; and therefore every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject, unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign state, or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born.
Emphasis added. It seems to me that being born on US soil is enough to qualify for natural born citizenship, if we're to fall back on the history of English common law, at least that's what the Supreme Court ruled. Correct?
So you’re saying Obama was born in England and is a natural born subject??? You’re not helping yourself.
If you are born a US citizen, you are natural born. Only you can cancel your "natural born" status. And only after having reached adulthood. Your parents can't do it for you.
A lot of folks get confused reasoning about these issues, because they can't get Zero out of their heads. Before considering these issues, it's best to put Zero completely out of your mind. Or substitute RR.
I'm sorry, I didn't realize that the North Carolina's legislature superceded Congress when it came to the state of the citizenship of the United States. The 1790 Act is pretty explicit, is it not?
And don't confuse common law to mean English common law at the time of the revolution as that is the law that was repudiated by the founders in the Declaration in 1776.
Well, the Supreme Court in Ark seemed to rely on English Common Law in their decision. Apparently without your permission.
Since we've determined that NC law trumps Federal Law, and that the Supreme Court was wrong in relying on English Common Law, well I guess I'll just bow out now...
Exactly! We know from all the several 1st drafts that one contained the term ‘native born’, however that was stripped out and replaced with ‘natural born’ thus proving that there was a difference in definitions, otherwise the term native would have remained.
Morse, 1904
A natural born citizen has been defined as one whose citizenship is established by the jurisdiction which the United States already has over the parents of the child, not what is thereafter acquired by choice of residence in this country.
Morse then pointed out that “if it was intended that anybody who was a citizen by birth should be eligible, it would only have been necessary to say, ‘no person except a native-born citizen’; but the framers thought it wise in view of the probable influx of European immigration to provide that the President should at least be the child of citizens owing allegiance to the United States at the time of his birth.”
How you got that I was claiming Obama was born in England is beyond me...
The courts beg to differ. For Constitutional purposes, the Supreme Court has ruled that persons born outside the US, but citizens at birth via statue are "naturalized at birth". Why? Because Congress has power only to create a Uniform Rule of Naturalization. So anyone who is a citizen solely through the operation of a statute, must be naturalized. Although the statute law says they are not naturalized. The Constitution says they must be.
No statute attempt to say who is a Natural Born citizen. Even the 1790 statute which did contain the words Natural Born Citizen (the only statute law ever to do so) said that the children of citizens born abroad shall be *considered* as Natural Born Citizens. But in 1795, that law was repealed and replaces, and it still made those born abroad of US citizen parents citizens at birth, it did use the words "Natural Born".
While no one knows why "natural born" was left out of the 1795 and all later laws, I believe that they recognized that they had overstepped their bounds, or that is could be inferred that they had, in trying to redefine a Constitutional term.
What is interesting about all that is that in putting that into a statute, they were acknowledging that such persons were *not*, and are not natural born under the Constitution.
But as your two categories, yes there are only two ways, by birth or naturalization.
DRONE BE GONE!!! YOU HAVE NO INDEPENDENT THOUGHT, YOU ONLY HAVE WHAT HAS BEEN INDOCTRINATED INTO YOU!
Exactly. And apparently not seeing things their way means you’re a traitorous, Obamabot troll... I always though conservatism was to be marked by logic and reason, not emotion and desire.
Thanks for the lucid post!
What you quoted doesn’t say that natural born citizenship means native born. English common law made those persons born in the colonies of colonist parents natural born subjects. This remained in effect up until the Constitution was ratified, and perhaps beyond because there were still British loyalists (kind of like Obama who says his status at birth was governed by British law). You could be native born in the United States and either be a British subject or a U.S. citizen depending on where you loyalties were. The 14th amendement didn’t change this because it recognized you might be subject to another country. They didn’t recognize dual citizenship at the time, so you were either subject to the United States or subject to the country of your parents if they only had temporary allegiance in the United States. For Wong Kim Ark, the court acknowledged native born citizenship because the parents were subject to the United States by being permanent residents, having domicile in the United States and operating a business here.
Obama’s father did not have permanent residence nor do business here. He was a visiting scholar. Obama’s mama married two foreign nationals, the second of which she promptly moved out of the country with and declared her child an Indonesian citizen. From whom would Obama derive natural U.S. allegiance in that mess?? Nobody. Plus, we still don’t know for sure WHERE he was born.
It's also common for Mexicans. Many well to do, by Mexican standards, come to the US to give birth. They do this not so that their children might be US President someday, or so they can get a Free Eduction or healthcare, but rather that the children have a perceived "safe haven" should Mexico go to hell in a hand basket, which it's often on the brink of doing. More so recently.
Our first exchange student, and her sister in law, did just that. She has 3 children. I really don't know #2 and #3, but the US, or any other country would be glad to have #1` as a citizen.
But, the ironic thing is that the US may go to hell in that same hand basket, and perhaps sooner than Mexico, although Obama will have work harder to make that happen than the Mexican "leaders" who seem to believe more in slow and steady when it comes to destroying their country, do. But the PRIistas are no pikers either, come to that.
You mean because I read the words, the history, and the actions of the Founders and I reach conclusions different from you I must not be capable of independent thought.
Yet if I parroted your lines, and mimicked your posts as a real drone would, I would be rewarded with your consideration of an independent thinker.
With such twisted logic how can anyone discuss rationally with you?
Good night, sir...
I don't see the words "natural born" in the 14th amendment. It did nothing to change the meaning of that term. And it did not intend to do so. The intent was to make citizens of the freed slaves. Full Stop. It has the side effect of making anyone, regardless of their parentage, born in the US, a citizen of the US, But it says nothing about Natural Born. No court case has turned on the meaning of Natural Born Citizen. So despite centuries of dicta on the subject, as case that did turn on the meaning, which could only be a Presidential Eligibility case, would/will be a case of first impression. No "settled law", no binding precedent. Just a knock down drag out over the original meaning or understanding of the term as used in the Presidential eligibility clause of Article II Section 1 of the Constitution.
As far as "dual citizenship" the US does not recognize such, and I do not challenge that notion. Similarly, I do not see how what a foreign nation claims over a US citizen would affect the US' claim on that citizen. If Canada suddenly claimed all US citizens as their own citizens, does that immediately negate our possible natural born status?
I simply posit that what another nation claims about a person is irrelevant because the US ignores that claim. It only worries about its own claim AND what the citizen pledges. If you do not claim allegiance to that foreign nation, how does that foreign nation's claim on you matter?
Yes, to be a subject to a monarch, this makes perfectly good sense. To be a citizen of an Independent Republic, not so much. But, you've jumped the gun on what they were talking about. They made distinctions between permanent and temporary loyalty. Other parts of their citation acknowledge this by saying the children of aliens were natural born subjects, but only as long as they remained in England. The plaintiff in Wong Kim Ark was NOT found to be a natural born citizen.
Unfortunatly, for you, the Supreme Court disagrees. If you gained citizenship at birth solely because of a statute passed by Congress, then since Congress only has power to define rules of Naturalization, for Constitutional purposes you are considered Naturalized at Birth, and thus cannot be a natural born citizen, nor even a 14th amendment "native born" citizen. (native born is not used in the 14th amendment, and using as I just did and most people do, is a modern usage meaning "born in the country" )
Interestingly A. Hamilton's proposal to require the President to be "born a citizen" was replaces with the requirement that he be a "natural born citizen". this indicates that at the time the two phrases "born a citizen" and "natural born citizen" did not mean the same, else why replace the terminology. Other than subsituting "natural born citizen" for "born a citizen" Hamliton's proposal is almost the same as the final phraseology.
Hamilton's proposal:
No person shall be eligible to the office of President of the United States unless he be now a Citizen of one of the States, or hereafter be born a Citizen of the United States."
The final language.
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;
Funny, I looked at the phrasing of the very first statute created about citizenship, and it states unequivocally that you can be born outside the US and still be a natural born citizen. The Citizenship Act of 1790 also referred to white aliens being citizens, which is surely NOT your point in dealing with Obama. Regardless, that phrase was dropped in the Citizenship Act of 1795. Historians disagree if dropping the "natural born citizen" phraseology from the 1795 Act was purposeful or not. However, it would certainly seem that Congress more than 200 years later obviously agreed that "natural born citizen" does NOT apply in the manner the 1790 Act is occasionally interpreted, as shown with the attempted passage of this Bill in 2004:
To define the term `natural born Citizen' as used in the Constitution of the United States to establish eligibility for the Office of President.
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Point out where that uses the term "natural born citizen".
Only by assuming that "citizen at birth" is the same as "natural born citizen" can you make such statement. But that courts have already ruled that those who are citizens at birth by operation of that statute, or any other, must be considered "naturalized at birth", under Congress power to define rules of Naturalization. If they are naturalized, they can hardly be natural born, now can they?
I understand that, because Ark moved away when an adult. I don’t know if relocation is the issue with Obama, is it? Relocation as a minor I don’t think counts at “renouncing” or foreswearing citizenship as the minor didn’t make the decision willfully.
It is an interesting question, and I think those who claim hard-and-fast that it must be one way and one way only are putting aside reason and logic, as there isn’t enough legal precedent to conclusively state either way.
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