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.
“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.”
I agree that the definition needs to be clarified, but not by amendment. If we have to define one “unclear” term in the constitution by amendment, then we would have to define them all, i.e., bear, infringed, speech, search, assembly, press, cruel and unusual, probable cause, etc. Big disagreements on all of these. Future generations would pass amendments to repeal our amendment and install the definition du jour.
Clarification is the province of an honorable Supreme Court that studies what these terms originally meant, and why and how they came to be used in the Constitution. Not something I’ll see in my lifetime, unfortunately, unless Trump is completely successful in replacing 3-4 justices with originalists.
While the founders were visionaries, they could not envision a time when Americans would be so lazy that they would let the beautiful republic they had been bequeathed dissolve beneath their lazy feet and fat asses; that they would allow their children to be separated from the history of how this country came to be and the gifts that liberty provides.
“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.”
My mileage doesn’t vary on this - at all. The history of and discussions on the 14th amendment, to me, were quite clear. It was NEVER intended that children born here to foreigners (legal or illegal) would be citizens of the US. You are spot-on in your thinking.