I remember that from when people were arguing about John McCain and Ted Cruz, but its never been clear what people think it means when they cite it.
Is the idea that Minor is dispositive that birthright citizenship is separate and distinct from the Natural Born Citizen mentioned, but not defined in the Constitution? Has it simply been ignored and misapplied? Or is the idea that it could be read to support legislation or a new case before SCOTUS to clarify the matter?
The problem with this line of argument is always that the way the courts and election officials have addressed this is that, at present, a person who is a citizen at birth is a “Natural Born Citizen” for the purposes of eligibility. The corrective for that would have to be legislation, SCOTUS wouldn’t touch it with a 10 foot pole, IMHO.
The other problem that comes up is that there seems to be no agreement among the critics of the currently enforced legal standard is the exact qualifications that should be included in the NBC definition.
How about a person who is the child of two US citizens, but born outside of the US? For sure he’s a citizen at birth, but is he an NBC? Why or why not?
How about an anchor baby born in the US to illegal immigrant parents? Under current law, and a fairly robust reading of the 14th amendment, he’s a US citizen at birth, and aandan NBC. Many, including me, have argued that neither should be the case, but realistically, it would probably take another constitutional amendment to change that. Is there another path that has heretofore been missed?
These are not frivolous matters, and it’s worth trying to understand what needs to change, and how that change could be effected.