“I do not think the entire Indonesian Citizenship argument here is particularly relevant—even if these events affect his US status, if he is a citizen now and was born in the US, he is still eligible. “
So ‘born in the borders of the US equals eligible for POTUS’ regardless of events after a single event.
Many subscribe that. And it appears to provide comfort to those who want to ignore the potential issue.
But is it accurate?
The debate of the definition of ‘natural born Citizen’, the discussions of jus soli and jus sanguinis, the difference between natural born Citizen and natural born subject, etc. etc. It can make anyone’s head hurt thinking about it.
But ignoring all that it seems clear that any point in time a person can be considered a natural born Citizen OR a naturalized citizen. Both are citizens and have full rights. One is eligble, one is not.
Without a doubt article II prohibits NATURALIZED citizens from being eligible. Or at least that seems to be a logical path of understanding.
If someone is formally naturalized via a formal naturalization process it should be clear they are not eligble. Hence why Arnold is not eligible. He IS a naturalized citizen.
If Sven is correct or close to correct then you have naturalized citizen as POTUS. It would seem relevant. May a court or SCOTUS would rule to agree with the premise stated above. Who knows at this point.
But if a someone, ANYONE, was shown to be naturalized and then rose to POTUS it would cause rethinking the entire history of Article II, Section 1, its meaning and its application in the future. And because of that this the facts for the current situation should be understood.
Look that's all just argument. I do not particularly like the state of the law on the subject but you and I are not making the law and if the issue gets to the US Supreme Court on a record that does not show him born outside the US, he is going to be held eligible. That would have been the case to any Supreme Court going back to the early 1900's.
Without a doubt article II prohibits NATURALIZED citizens from being eligible. Or at least that seems to be a logical path of understanding.
If someone is formally naturalized via a formal naturalization process it should be clear they are not eligble. Hence why Arnold is not eligible. He IS a naturalized citizen.
Now come on, grow up. That's not why Arnold is not eligible at all--Arnold is not eligible because he was not born in the United States and therefore is not and never has been a natural born citizen. The fact that he has subsequently been naturalized is irrelevant.
The objective of the natural born clause is to avoid the prospect that a person who was subject to the sovereignty of another head of state for the reason that such person was born there would become head of state of the US in a subservient or subordinate status. Whatever Article II, Sec. 1 meant originally, that is all that is left of it and frankly, having reviewed all of the purported legislative history of the clause, I tend to believe that is all that was originally intended.
If he was born here, Zero's case is obviously different.
If all this stuff about his Indonesian citizenship and loss of citizenship is true, it still doesn't affect the basic international law of sovereignty at birth. Further, I suggest that whatever Sven's record is, it will turn out not to affect Zero's birth citizenship which is likely to turn out to have remained entact.
In all of the material he has posted, there is still nothing that constitutes a legal basis on which to conclude that Zero's Article II, Sec. 1 citizenship was ever affected.
If it makes you fell any better, at this point I am reasonably comfortable that he was not in fact born in the United States.