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To: Lmo56
However, the Supreme Court has NEVER made this determination as to a child born on US soil of alien parents -

Yes it has.

Natural Born Citizen

U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark

U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark's (1898) importance is that it is the first case decided by the Supreme Court that attempts to explain the meaning of "natural born citizen" under Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution. Natural born citizen is similar to the meaning of what a natural born subject is under Common Law in England. That is one of the reasons why the framers specifically included a grandfather clause (natural born Citizen OR a Citizen of the United States, at the time of adoption of this Constitution). The founding fathers knew that in order to be president, they had to grandfather themselves in because they were British subjects. If they didn't, they could not be President of the U.S. The holding in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark states that Wong Kim Ark is a native-born citizen. If you look at the fact of Wong Kim Ark being born in San Francisco, CA, of Chinese parents, that holding is correct.

In U. S. v Wong Kim Ark, the court thoroughly discussed "natural born citizen," and in doing so, Justice Gray quoted directly from the holding in a prior Supreme Court case, Minor v. Happersett


165 posted on 04/21/2010 11:09:57 PM PDT by TigersEye (Duncan Hunter, Jim DeMint, Michelle Bachman, ...)
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To: TigersEye

This citation is a bit of a mess. If you read Wong Kim Ark closely, it acknowledges that the children of aliens were considered natural born subjects only so long as the parents remained in the country and gave allegiance to the King. They had to have permanent allegiance, thus the Wong decision hinges on the parents being permanent U.S. residents. Obama’s father was not a permanent U.S. resident. Even so, the 14th amendment only made it possible to declare such a person to be a ‘citizen of the United States’ and not a natural born citizen.


170 posted on 04/21/2010 11:20:17 PM PDT by edge919
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To: TigersEye
Wong Kim Ark was only declared to be a citizen under the 14th Amendment [see the last paragraph of the decision].

There is good reason for this. Justice Gray [you can tell from his writing] desperately wanted to declare Ark NBC. To that end, he bastardized, exaggerated, and even lied about the meaning of some of the citations in the opinion [Calvin's Case, Dicey, Blackstone, etc.] So, why didn't he do it [declare Ark NBC]?

There is only one possible explanation - he WOULD NOT have gotten a majority on the Court if he had insisted that Ark was NBC. They were willing to go along with Ark being a citizen under the 14th Amendment [which, he clearly was] - but NOT NBC ...

In lawyer-speak, they call it "splitting the baby". Ark got half a loaf - but it was better than none ...

181 posted on 04/21/2010 11:49:24 PM PDT by Lmo56
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