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To: Yo-Yo

Wrong.


22 posted on 03/15/2010 9:29:01 AM PDT by Radix (What happened in Massachusetts, is going to be times 10 in a few months.)
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To: Radix; Shimmer1; Man50D; Tarpon
The Fourtheenth Amendment superceeds any prior Supreme Court rulings regarding "natural born" citizenship, and the definition of "natural born" has not been addressed directy by the court since.

Fourtheenth Amendment (emphasis added:)

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

Here are the relevant Fourteenth Amendment cases that the court has decided (from Wikipedia):

The provisions in Section 1 have been interpreted to the effect that children born on United States soil, with very few exceptions, are U.S. citizens. This type of guarantee—legally termed jus soli, or "right of the territory"— does not exist in most of Western Europe, Asia or the Middle East, although it is part of English common law and is common in the Americas. The phrase "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" indicates that there are some exceptions to the universal rule that birth on U.S. soil automatically grants citizenship.

Two Supreme Court precedents were set by the cases of Elk v. Wilkins[7] and United States v. Wong Kim Ark.[8] Elk v. Wilkins established that Native American tribes represented independent political powers with no allegiance to the United States, and that their peoples were under a special jurisdiction of the United States. Children born to these Native American tribes therefore did not qualify for automatic citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment. Indian tribes that paid taxes were exempt from this ruling; their peoples were already citizens by an earlier act of Congress, and all non-citizen Native Americans (called "Indians") were subsequently made citizens by the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924.

In Wong Kim Ark the Supreme Court held that under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, a man born within the United States to foreigners (in that case, Chinese citizens) who were lawfully residing in the United States and who were not employed in a diplomatic or other official capacity by a foreign power, was a citizen of the United States.

Under these two rulings, the following persons born in the United States are not "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States, and thus do not qualify for automatic citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment:

* Children born to foreign diplomats
* Children born to enemy forces in hostile occupation of the United States
* Children born to Native Americans who are members of tribes not taxed (These were later given full citizenship by the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924.)

All other persons born in the United States were citizens.

So you can hope and wish and think you understand the legal definition of what is a "natural born" citizen, but you cannot point to a Supreme Court ruling upholding your opinion.

24 posted on 03/15/2010 10:42:06 AM PDT by Yo-Yo (Is the /sarc tag really necessary?)
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