Since we’re in Festival and won’t be bothering anyone with this slide, I figured I’d chime in here.
Walt, you quoted a couple statutes in your post, notably “Act of May 24, 1934, Pub. L. No. 73-250, 48 Stat. 797.”
If you have to have a law that says you’re a “natural born” citizen, you’re not. NBC’s don’t need any laws. They can’t be anything other than a citizen of where they are born, if both their parents (Naturalized or Natural Born) are citizens of that country also. (As an aside, when the country was founded, since the wife took the citizenship of the husband, I would be open to discussions of having just the father required to be a US citizen. The Cable Act in 1922 gave the wife her own citizenship).
Anything other than this combination - soil and parents - gives rise to multiple citizenship - which invites intrigue - something the founders were trying to avoid.
The writers of the Constitution were pretty smart people, who said what they meant and meant what they said. They said “natural born” which means soil and parents based on the meaning of the time. Writing a law does not change the definition. (Cool used to mean lower temperature, not hip which used to mean a part of your body, or neat - which used to mean not messy - see where I’m going with this?)
Same with the 2nd Amendment. “shall not be infringed” means just that - no infringement. No restrictions. No if, but. The fact that we no longer rely on the militia to do our battles at home or overseas does not change the meaning of the word.
The constitution was written for people of average intelligence, not lawyers. If you want to change the meaning of the words in the Constitution, the process to do that is called an amendment.
The quotes from CRS, FAS, even the supreme court are from organizations with an agenda. They do not have the best interests of the united States in mind or heart. If they did, they would take the most restrictive interpretation of requirements for the highest office in the land. I included the supreme court in there because they can be wrong and often are, i.e. Dredd Scott, Kelo v New London.
Once you start down the road of letting this person or that person become “qualified” because of whatever reason, then the meaning of “natural born” is, well, meaningless. And then you have a living, breathing constitution. Is that what you’re looking for?
Thank you. There has been no SCOTUS decision on “what is a NBC” but it would be good if there was. With majority originalists on the bench I know what their decision would be. Maybe wait until RedBlueGreen is replaced. Until a generation or two ago, kids in civics classes in school, state department literature, and kids on US bases were taught that NBC means “born on the soil to parentS who are citizens”. It was the commonly understood and non-mysterious definition. More recently that definition has been removed from State Dept info...hmm...
Interestingly, a couple of years before 0hola ran for pres, an effort was made to remove the NBC requirement for president (by Demsheviks of course, no doubt preparing the way for their god) but it failed. My feeble brain doesn’t remember any more details about it and time prevents me from searching right now.
I like these parts in particular.
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If you have to have a law that says you’re a “natural born” citizen, you’re not. NBC’s don’t need any laws. They can’t be anything other than a citizen of where they are born, if both their parents (Naturalized or Natural Born) are citizens of that country also.
Anything other than this combination - soil and parents - gives rise to multiple citizenship - which invites intrigue - something the founders were trying to avoid.
The writers of the Constitution were pretty smart people, who said what they meant and meant what they said. They said “natural born” which means soil and parents based on the meaning of the time. Writing a law does not change the definition
The constitution was written for people of average intelligence, not lawyers. If you want to change the meaning of the words in the Constitution, the process to do that is called an amendment.
The quotes from CRS, FAS, even the supreme court are from organizations with an agenda. They do not have the best interests of the united States in mind or heart.
If you have to have a law that says you’re a “natural born” citizen, you’re not. NBC’s don’t need any laws. They can’t be anything other than a citizen of where they are born, if both their parents (Naturalized or Natural Born) are citizens of that country also.
(As an aside, when the country was founded, since the wife took the citizenship of the husband, I would be open to discussions of having just the father required to be a US citizen. The Cable Act in 1922 gave the wife her own citizenship).
Anything other than this combination - soil and parents - gives rise to multiple citizenship - which invites intrigue - something the founders were trying to avoid.
The quotes from CRS, FAS, even the supreme court are from organizations with an agenda. They do not have the best interests of the united States in mind or heart.
If they did, they would take the most restrictive interpretation of requirements for the highest office in the land. I included the supreme court in there because they can be wrong and often are, i.e. Dredd Scott, Kelo v New London.
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SLIDE-Since it’s festival, I’ll chime in. I’m not really big on this issue, because I think it’s a gray area that needs to be clarified by a constitutional amendment. I don’t trust the Congress or the Courts to do this without some check on what they do—hence the need to counter balance with at least 2/3 of the states ratifying.
You have made Very good points. While I did not participate in all those heated discussions, I read them and researched on my own.
My conclusion was that it was a gray area that could have been avoided by providing a definition of “natural born” citizen requirement for President within the constitution.
Given the discussions when Congress passed the 1790 and 1795 citizenship acts, it seems that opinions were somewhat diverse even then. With one of the comments being that a child born to citizen parents abroad had more right to be a citizen than one merely born on US soil to foreigners.
The state department guidance in 2008 was that a child born in a foreign country, when one or both parents were US citizens was considered a natural born citizen. However, it also stated that it was not certain whether that term could be applied with respect to qualification for President. And a short discussion of the ambiguity.
Congress was given the right to pass laws regulating naturalization. Would it even be Constitutional for Congress to pass a law defining this requirement for President?
Could Congress pass a law that the President would have to be 40 years old? No that would take a Constitutional amendment. So it’s likely that such an Amendment to the Constitution would be needed to define the term as it pertains to Presidential eligibility.
I can see valid points on many sides of this issue, but to me it’s a gray area legally and constitutionally. The more pressing issue to me is anchor babies, and tourism babies—I don’t think they should be considered citizens, when their parents are not citizens and especially if the parents are here illegally. YMMV.