Posted on 08/11/2020 7:30:27 PM PDT by captain_dave
Is Kamala Harris qualified to be Vice President? Is Kamala Harris a "Natural Born Citizen"?
While she was born in California in 1964, both her parents were, at that time, recent immigrants. Her mother immigrated in 1960 and her father in 1961 (according to the bio in Wikipedia). So, there is a serious question whether she is a natural born citizen.
The old accepted understanding of "natural born citizen" is a person born of two citizen parents, so at birth has no other loyalties, or claims of loyalty.
Rubio, Nikki Haley and Bobby Jindal are all anchor babies born to foreign citizen parents and, like Kamala Harris.
None are eligible to be POTUS or VP.
Mother was,father wasn’t. Just like Obama.
Churchill was born to a Brit dad and an American mom.
Here are thtee unassailable points of logic that RINOs, leftists, the deep state and New World Order types always run from:
Point 1. The adjective “natural” in the phrase “natural born Citizen” must not be superfluous and without contributing further significant restrictive meaning to the phrase it modifies, therefore a natural born Citizen must be a significantly restricted subset of born citizen (citizen at birth). Clearly the two phrases (citizen at birth and natural born Citizen) must mean significantly different things with the latter being a restrictive subset of the former. To suggest otherwise is insulting to the deliberate, articulate elegance of the Founders who meticulously crafted the Constitution over weeks and months.
Point 2. The Founders wrote the Constitution in simple, everyday language meant to be understood by the ordinary citizen. Words mean things and natural means of or by nature as opposed to of or by man. The only type citizen whose citizenship does not depend on man’s law is a natural born Citizen. All other citizen type are citizens by law, i.e., statutory born citizens.
Why does a natural born Citizen’s citizenship depend on no law? Because they are an inherent 100 percent American solely by the nature (that word again) of their birth circumstances. When one is born in the territory of the USA to two 100 percent USA citizen parents, one is by inherent nature a 100 percent USA citizen because no other outcome is possible, so no law is needed.
Point 3. Three inherent characteristics at birth are generally considered to contribute to citizenship and to one’s natural allegiances, these being: the citizenship of one’s father, the citizenship of one’s mother and the land of one’s birth (normally where one is raised). The Founders’ explicit stated purpose of restricting the presidency to only natural born Citizens was to provide a strong check to prevent the republic from falling prey to a presidency (and military) subverted by foreign influence and intrigue. It strains all logic and common sense to beyond credulity to suggest that the Founders would believe that a strong check would be provided by requiring just one of these characteristics (the least restrictive combination) rather than all three (the most restrictive combination).
“The test was place of birth, not the citizenship of parents”
To the contrary, the test was the citizenship of parents. The Naturalization Act of 1790 defines natural born as being offspring of citizen parents.
That was taught throughout the history of the United States until the election of Barack Obama. That was taught to me in high school and in college in the 1970s.
Good posting!
“Anchor babies are just as eligible to be president as real Americans”
Not according to the natural born clause in the Constitution.
Anchor babies, under the Constitution, are not citizens. Immigration laws passed by Congress or ruled on by the Supreme Court cannot amend the Constitution.
Thumbs up!
Good posting. Saving this.
Saving
Thanks for the post.
When will she renounce her Jamaican citizenship? That’s what we want to know, for openers.
This issue has already been settled. As with any other law, it doesn’t apply to office-seeming Democrats.
The term “Natural born citizen” appears in the documentary history of the 1783 Treaty of Paris between the U.S. and the British. John Adams was involved. The term was therefore NOT minted by John Jay in his 1787 “hint” letter to Geo. Washington.
Check this out:
_____
On The Meaning of “Considered as Natural Born”
wakeforestlawreview.com
John Vlahoplus*
Introduction
[I]t shall be understood that the two Countries shall allways be mutually naturalized, that every person born in either Country shall be considered as a natural born Subject throughout Great Britain and America as before the troubles.
— Proposed Anglo-American peace terms, 1777[1]
Scholars have long debated what to make of the provision in the Naturalization Act of 1790 that foreign-born children of American parents “shall be considered as natural born citizens . . .”[2] Did the Founders who sat in the First Congress use that phrase to tell us something important about the presidential eligibility of foreign-born citizens like Senator Ted Cruz?[3] Did they intend to declare that foreign-born children of American parents are natural born citizens under the substantive constitutional meaning of the term?[4] Alternatively, did they mean to tell us that anyone who is born a citizen is a natural born citizen, so that the Constitution they drafted and ratified gives Congress the power to define “natural born” status by granting statutory citizenship at birth?[5] Or did they merely intend to naturalize the children without declaring or defining presidential eligibility?[6]
Most scholars examine earlier uses of “natural born subject” to illuminate the meaning of “natural born citizen.” None, however, have examined earlier uses of the phrase “considered as natural born” in order to understand its meaning in the final terms of the Naturalization Act of 1790. This Article does. It concludes that prescriptive uses like that in the Act merely naturalized persons or granted them limited rights enjoyed by the natural born, and that descriptive uses reflect an important feature of the controversy over colonial subject status prior to Independence. Members of the First Congress did not use the phrase to mean someone who is a citizen at birth or eligible to the presidency.
Prescriptive Uses
There were two prescriptive uses of the phrase “considered as natural born” prior to 1790. The first was to grant foreigners limited rights of a natural born subject. A royal license published in 1763 provided that alien printers employed by Oxford University “shall in all respects be considered as natural born subjects, except as to customs and subsidies.”[7] A Massachusetts magazine reported in 1787 that “[t]he Parliament of Paris entered on their Journals on the 31st of March the letters patent which abolish the Droitt d’Aubaine; and by which English subjects, dying in France, are to be considered as natural born subjects.”[8] That action relinquished the sovereign right to claim all of the local property of a foreigner who died in France.[9] The use of the phrase “considered as natural born subjects” did not make one a natural born subject of France by dying there. Nor did it make an alien the king’s natural born subject through university employment.[10] Considering someone as natural born in this context only conferred limited rights enjoyed by the natural born such as the right to security of property against the sovereign.
The second prescriptive use was to naturalize someone, illustrated by proposed terms to reconcile Britain and America after Independence. David Hartley, a sympathetic member of Parliament and the principal British peace negotiator, proposed in a 1783 draft supplemental peace treaty that America’s independence would be “absolute & unlimited in Matters of Government as well as Commerce” but not as to “Alienation”; on that point “the Subjects of his Britannick Majesty & the citizens of the united States shall mutually be considered as Natural born Subjects, & enjoy all rights & privileges as such, in the respective Dominions and territories, in the Manner heretofore accustomed.”[11] As he had explained the proposal to Ben Franklin six years earlier, “it shall be understood that the two Countries shall allways be mutually naturalized, that every person born in either Country shall be considered as a natural born Subject throughout Great Britain and America as before the troubles.”[12]
John Adams told his fellow American peace negotiators that he “would agree at once to a mutual Naturalization” as Hartley proposed.[13] Considering the British as natural born subjects of the United States did not mean granting political rights to every person born in Britain. American governmental independence was to be absolute.[14] It only meant granting them private rights by naturalization—removing the disabilities of alienage. Among the most important rights of the natural born and those considered to be natural born were rights to own, bequeath, and inherit property.[15] Absent a change of law, Independence would make Britons and Americans aliens to each other, eliminating rights to property that each owned in the other’s dominions and precluding future property rights for them and for their fellow nationals.[16]
Hartley’s proposal had long been public. He had urged Britain to abandon the war and reconcile with America in 1778, proposing in Parliament that Britain agree “that all persons, born either in Great Britain, Ireland, or the colonies, provinces and plantations of North America, shall be considered as natural-born subjects, and enjoy all rights and privileges as such, throughout all the said dominions in common, in the manner heretofore accustomed.”[17]
In its prescriptive use, to consider someone as natural born meant only to naturalize them or to grant them limited rights enjoyed by the natural born. It did not make them natural born in fact, and it did not necessarily confer political rights. Given this prior usage, particularly in proposed terms of peace from 1777 to 1783, one might expect members of the First Congress to use the phrase with that same prescriptive meaning in 1790. And in fact they did.
Legislative history shows that members of Congress understood the phrase “shall be considered as natural born” to naturalize persons, not to mean a citizen at birth, to confer presidential eligibility, or to declare existing constitutional law.[18] Variants of the phrase appear in four other proposals in the drafting of and debates over H.R. 40, the bill that became the Naturalization Act of 1790.[19] Three of the four provide that persons shall be considered as natural born citizens after their births—including offspring of alien parents as well as those of citizen parents.[20] The fourth provides that persons will be considered as natural born only until they reach the age of twenty-two, when their citizenship would expire to prevent the inconvenience of dual nationality—thirteen years before they could satisfy the thirty-five year minimum age required for presidential eligibility.[21] Members of the First Congress used the phrase “considered as natural born” consistent with its prescriptive meaning, to naturalize.
Without looking at earlier uses of the phrase, one cannot tell whether congressional usage reflected only a technical meaning understood by the relevant group of federal legislators or a meaning understood by broader groups.[22] The cited legislative history of H.R. 40 was not fully reported at the time, and scholars and courts have overlooked it ever since. The debates occurred at the same time as those over Hamilton’s proposal to assume state war debts, which proved far more noteworthy. Fortunately, there is prior usage that reveals the generally understood meaning of the phrase in 1790.
Descriptive Uses in the Colonies
Descriptive uses of the phrase “considered as natural born” in the colonies reflect an important feature of the controversy over colonial subject status prior to Independence. Thomas Pownall, a British colonial administrator, explained in published reports that the colonies were originally outside of the realm; colonists were entitled to the rights of natural subjects by royal charters “as if they had been abiding and born within the realm.”[23] Consequently, “[s]o long as they were considered as natural born English subjects” they possessed the rights of one.[24] The colonists were not born within the realm and therefore were not in fact natural born subjects under the common law; they were only considered as natural born. Their status derived from royal charters and did not, of course, include political rights such as representation in Parliament.[25]
Some colonists cited grounds outside the common law to describe their subject status even in the second half of the eighteenth century. James Otis wrote in 1765 that the colonists were “considered as natural born Subjects” by reference to an eighteenth century British naturalization statute and therefore were “intitled to all the essential Rights of” natural born subjects.[26] The Massachusetts House of Representatives also claimed in 1765 that the province’s inhabitants were entitled to the rights of natural subjects by royal charter, common justice, and the same British naturalization statute.[27]
It might seem strange that some colonists relied on charters, common justice, and reference to an eighteenth century British naturalization statute rather than the common law so long after the establishment of the colonies. But the source of their subject status was controversial during the struggle for political autonomy. John Adams wrote in 1775 that colonization was “[c]asus omissus at common law.”[28] Against the claim that America was annexed to the realm, he asked defiantly “[t]o what realm? When New-England was settled, there was a realm of England, a realm of Scotland, and a realm of Ireland. To which of these three realms was New England annexed?”[29] Adams denied that America was annexed to any of them.[30]
Conclusion
In 1790, the phrase “shall be considered as natural born” was prescriptive and merely naturalized persons or granted them limited rights enjoyed by the natural born. It did not make them natural born in fact. It did not necessarily grant political rights or mean that they were subjects or citizens at birth. The fact that the First Congress used the phrase does not tell us that the children were eligible to the presidency—or, on the other hand, that they were necessarily ineligible. It tells us only that those who receive citizenship at birth abroad are naturalized citizens even if their parents are American.[31] The question remains whether naturalized citizens can be eligible to the presidency—whether someone can be both naturalized and natural born. Scholars may assert that case[32] but not because the Naturalization Act of 1790 considered the children as natural born.
—–
* Member, New York State Bar.
[1] Letter from David Hartley to Benjamin Franklin, National Archives (Dec. 25, 1777), http://franklinpapers.org/franklin/framedVolumes.jsp?vol=25&page=349b.
[2] An Act to Establish an Uniform Rule of Naturalization, ch. 3, 2 Stat. 103, 104 (1790) (repealed 1795).
[3] See, e.g., Eugene D. Mazo, Rethinking Presidential Eligibility, 85 Fordham L. Rev. 1045, 1051 (2016).
[4] See, e.g., Alexander Porter Morse, Natural-born Citizen, 31 Wash. L. Rep. 823, 823 (1903).
[5] See, e.g., Paul Clement & Neal Katyal, On the Meaning of “Natural Born Citizen,” 128 Harv. L. Rev. F. 161, 161–62 (2015).
[6] See, e.g., Rob Natelson, Claims that Senator Cruz is not “Natural Born” Need to be Taken Seriously, Originalism Blog (Jan. 11, 2016), http://originalismblog.typepad.com/the-originalism-blog/2016/01/claims-that-sen-cruz-is-not-natural-born-need-to-be-taken-seriouslyrob-natelson.html.
[7] 1 Richard Burn, Ecclesiastical Law 374 (1763), https://hdl.handle.net/2027/nyp.33433003000712.
[8] Summary of Late Intelligence, 3 Worcester Magazine 204, 204 (1787), https://books.google.com/books?id=omoAAAAAYAAJ.
[9] C.f. Zschernig v. Miller, 389 U.S. 429, 451–52 (1968).
[10] The king did not even have the power to naturalize aliens; he could only grant the intermediate status of denizen. See 1 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 362 (1765), https://archive.org/details/lawsofenglandc01blacuoft.
[11] Letter and Two Memoranda from David Hartley to Benjamin Franklin, National Archives (Mar. 31, 1783), http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-39-02-0251.
[12] Letter from David Hartley to Benjamin Franklin, supra note 1.
[13] John Adams, April 28. Monday., National Archives (Apr. 28, 1783), http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/01-03-02-0002-0004-0002. Cf. John Adams, Draft Articles to Supplement the Preliminary Anglo-American Peace Treaty, National Archives (Apr. 27, 1783), http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-14-02-0278 (draft response that would have imposed obligations within the other’s territories in addition to granting rights and privileges).
[14] See Letter and Two Memoranda from David Hartley to Benjamin Franklin, supra note 11 (stating that U.S. independence would be “absolute & unlimited in Matters of Government”).
[15] See, e.g., Thomas Jefferson, Bill Concerning Escheats and Forfeitures from British Subjects, National Archives (Jun. 4, 1779), https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-02-02-0115.
[16] Id.
[17] 9 Parl. Reg. HC 134 (1778) (Gr. Brit.), https://books.google.com/books?id=9v02AQAAMAAJ.
[18] John Vlahoplus, Toward Natural Born Derivative Citizenship, 7 Brit. J. Am. Legal Stud. (forthcoming 2018) (manuscript at 36–37), https://ssrn.com/abstract=2915556.
[19] Id.
[20] Id.
[21] Id.
[22] For reliance on smaller linguistic groups to interpret technical terms, see, e.g., Lawrence B. Solum, Originalism and the Natural Born Citizen Clause, 107 Mich. L. Rev. First Impressions 22, 25 (2008).
[23] 1 Thomas Pownall, The Administration of the British Colonies 50–51 (1774), https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015016779681.
[24] Id. at 51.
[25] The author has found one broader descriptive use before 1790 outside of the colonies, from an anonymous writer who opposed a British proposal to naturalize members of a religious minority. See An Answer to a Pamphlet, Entitled, Considerations on the Bill to Permit Persons Professing the Jewish Religion to be Naturalized 3 (1753), https://books.google.com/books?id=LddbAAAAQAAJ (arguing categorically that none of them had ever before been “considered in the Eye of the Law as a natural-born Subject . . .”). Cf. 1 Zephaniah Swift, A System of the Laws of the State of Connecticut 166–67 (1795), https://books.google.com/books?id=dBE4AAAAIAAJ (broader descriptive uses in the United States after 1790).
[26] The Seventy-Six Society, Papers Relating to Public Events In Massachusetts Preceding the American Revolution 9 (1856), https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044010124246;view=1up;seq=1. ; Otis referred to the 1740 British statute naturalizing those who resided in the American colonies for seven years. See An Act for Naturalizing such Foreign Protestants, and Others Therein Mentioned, as are Settled, or shall Settle, in any of His Majesty’s Colonies in America 1740, 13 Geo. 2 c. 7 (Gr. Brit.), http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015035134090.
[27] The Seventy-Six Society, supra note 26, at 2.
[28] Letter from John Adams to the Inhabitants of the Colony of Massachusetts-Bay, National Archives (Mar. 13, 1775), http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-02-02-0072-0009.
[29] Id.
[30] Id.
[31] See, e.g., United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 702–03 (1898). This controverts the Second Circuit’s recent ruling that the statutory grant of derivative citizenship at birth “does not implicate Congress’s ‘power to admit or exclude foreigners . . .’” See Morales-Santana v. Lynch, 804 F.3d 520, 528 (2d Cir. 2015), cert. granted, 136 S. Ct. 2545 (June 28, 2016).
[32] See, e.g., Michael D. Ramsey, The Original Meaning of “Natural Born” 2–3 (Jan. 7, 2016) (unpublished manuscript), https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2712485. But see Vlahoplus, supra note 18, at 3–4 (ineligible regardless of parentage and age at naturalization).
And here is a draft article dated April 1783 that is part of the documentary history of the Treaty of Paris (I believe it was drafted by Adams but later rejected by the British negotiator Hartley).
It refers to “natural born citizens” of the several states of the United States of America.
_____
Draft Articles to Supplement the Preliminary Anglo-American Peace Treaty
[ca. 27 April 1783]1
Articles
agreed upon by and between David Hartley Esquire, Minister Plenipotentiary of his Britannic Majesty for &c
in behalf of his Said Majesty on the one Part, and J.A. B.F. J.J. and H.L, Ministers Plenipotentiary of the United States of America for treating of Peace with the Minister Plenipotentiary of his Said Majesty, on their behalf, on the other Part,
in Addition to those Articles agreed upon, on the 30th day of November 1782 by and between Richard Oswald Esqr the Commissioner of his Britannic Majesty for treating of Peace with the Commissioners of the United States of America, in behalf of his Said Majesty, on the one Part, and the Said J.A. B.F. J.J. and H.L, four of the Commissioners of the Said States for treating of Peace, with the Commissioner of his Said Majesty, on their Behalf, on the other Part.
1. The Subjects of the Crown of Great Britain, Shall enjoy in all the , Start deletion,Territories o, End, and every of the Said United States, all the Rights Liberties Priviledges and Immunities and be Subject to the Duties and Allegiance of natural born Citizens of the Said States—and on the other Hand, all the Citizens of the Said United States shall enjoy in all and every of the Dominions of the Crown of Great Britain, all the Rights, Liberties Priviledges and Immunities and be subject to the Duties and Allegiance of natural born Subjects of that Crown, excepting Such Individuals of either Nation as the Legislature of the other shall judge fit to except.2
2. That So soon as his Britannic Majesty shall have with drawn all his Armies Garrisons and Fleets from the said United states, and from every Port, Place and Harbour within the Same according to the 7 Article of the provisional Treaty of 30 Novr 1782. In all Rivers, harbours, Lakes Ports and Places belonging to his Britannic Majesty, in any Part of the World, the Merchants and Merchant Ships of the United states or any of them, shall be received, treated and protected, like the Merchants and Merchant ships of , Start deletion,British Subjects Great Britain the Citizens of the said, End, Great Britain, and be liable to no other Charges and Duties.
And reciprocally, in all Rivers, Harbours, Lakes, Ports and Places belonging to the Said states, or any of them, the Merchants , Start deletion,and Merchant ships,, End, & subjects of the Crown of Great Britain and the Merchant ships belonging to them, Shall be received treated and protected, like the Merchants and Merchant ships of the State in which they shall be, and be liable to no other Charges and Duties.
Saving always to the chartered trading Companies of Great Britain, Such exclusive Use, and Trade of their respective Ports and Establishments, as neither the subjects of Great Britain nor any the most favoured Nation participates in.3
3. That his Britannic Majesty Shall within Months from this Date and as much sooner as conveniently may be, withdraw , Start deletion,all, End, his Armies, Garrisons and Fleets, from the Said United states and from every Port, Place and Harbour, within the same and without causing any destruction, or carrying away any Negroes or other Property of the American Inhabitants, and leaving, in all Fortifications the American Artillery, that may be therein
And there shall be no future Confiscations made nor any Prosecutions commenced against any Person or Persons, for or by Reason of the Part which he or they may have taken in the late War, and no Person shall, on that Account Suffer any future Loss or Damage, either in his Person, Liberty or Property and that those who may be in confinement on Such Charges at the Time of the Evacuation of the United states by the British Forces, shall be immediately Set at Liberty, and the Prosecutions so commenced be discontinued, and all Persons , Start deletion,in Ameri, End, who have resided , Start deletion,within the Lines, End, in Places possessed by his Said Majesties Arms, and shall choose to remain there after the Evacuation shall have Liberty to do so for Twelve Months, they conducting themselves peaceably according to the Laws of the State, wherein they may be.
MS (Adams Papers); endorsed: “A. Project / of a Preamble to an / ulteriour provisional / Treaty.”; filmed at [Dec. 1782 – June 1783]. Note that the “A.” in this endorsement and those on the following four documents indicates that they were the work of “Adams,” for which see note 1, but see also the endorsement of the Proposed Article Regarding Article 7 of the Preliminary Peace Treaty, [28 April], below.
1. This document, the three articles that follow, and the proposed articles for a commercial treaty were likely drafted by JA on the evening of 27 April. JA’s Diary entry for the 28th indicates that “at 10 Mr. Jay came in, and I shewed him a Variety of Projects, which I had drawn up last night, concerning the Removal of the Troops, opening the Ports, tranquilizing the Tories now within the Lines, Articles for Commerce, in Explanation of the provisional Treaty &c” (JA, D&A, 3:113). Note that despite JA’s work, discussions with colleagues and David Hartley, his presumably high expectations that some of the articles would, in one form or another, find their way into the definitive peace treaty or a commercial treaty were not realized.
2. This provision, excluding the closing exception, was included in Benjamin Franklin’s “Sketch” of possible articles to be included in the definitive treaty, [10–13 Dec. 1782], and in an expanded form had been enclosed with Hartley’s 31 March letter to Franklin as a “Separate Article to be referred to the definitive treaty” (Adams Papers; Franklin, Papers, 38:433–435; Wharton, Dipl. Corr. Amer. Rev., 6:355). In his Diary entry for 28 April, JA indicated that he could accept “mutual Naturalization” or “Mr. Hartleys Propositions, to let the Trade go on as before the War or as with Nova Scotia” because “Time and the natural Course of Things will produce a good Treaty of Commerce” (JA, D&A, 3:113; Proposed Articles for an Anglo-American Commercial Treaty, [ca. 27 April], below).
3. This article was derived from Art. 4 of the draft treaty agreed to by Franklin, Jay, and Richard Oswald on 8 Oct. 1782 and rejected by the British ministry (Wharton, Dipl. Corr. Amer. Rev., 5:807). For the metamorphosis of this and the article that follows into the three articles agreed to by the commissioners and Hartley on 29 April (calendared, below), see the [28 April] draft by JA and Jay of a Proposed Article Regarding Article 7 of the Preliminary Peace Treaty, below.
Not true. While my father is an American citizen, my mother is a British Subject. I have two birth certificates; one issued by the British government, and a "Record of an American Born Abroad" issued by the U.S. Consulate. I do hold two passports although that may stop since the UK has broken from the EU; and even still have a NHS number for the UK even though it hasn't been used in 30+ years.
Oh, but it is true. Love it, live it.
bla bla bla.
Dont care.
YOU take action to force her off the ballot. If you do i will cheer you on...
Your birther doctrine may be 100 percent perfect. But it will probably have zero effect on any outcomes here.
Obama was installed twice.
The ship has sailed. Vattel was not on it.
Actually, I recall quite a few people right here on FR talking about the ineligibility of both Cruz and Rubio.
At the time of that case, Chinese citizens were precluded from becoming citizens of the U.S. Also, he never left the U.S. except to visit China with the intention of coming back. Harris’ parents weren’t precluded from obtaining citizenship and they, along with Kamala, resided in Canada for a time. I am not an attorney but I sure wish the courts would define this issue rather than punt it for lack of standing. It seems like fruit of the poisonous tree, to me. I don’t believe anchor babies are automatically citizens.
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