I posted the following on aanother thread and I am copying it here since it applies specifically to what Donifrio stated in one of his taped broadcasts.
From what I have read since this all came out a couple of days ago, the following paragraphs I think summarize the gist of the Donofrio suit.
There is no definition of the term “natural born” anywhere that can supercede what is contained in the Consitution itself. No law, statute, etc. can amend the U.S. Constitution, since it is the Supreme law of the land. (Or at least it is suppoesed to be.) Only an amendment can change what was originally writen in the constitution.
The only place the term “natural born” is defined (that can be considered legal) is within the Constitution itself. It is in the section refering to the president and that definition must be inferred by the fact that the founding fathers by adding the only exception to the “natural born” clause. The one exception allows for citizens at the time the constitution was adopted to be eligible to be President as well as “natural born” citizens.
The inference is pretty clear since the Founding Fathers were not “natural born” citizens because they were born as British subjects. This enabled them to be the early leaders of this country and get it started on the path they had laid out, but to deny the future leaders from having divided loyalties by birth. Hence to be a natural born citizen you must be born on U.S. soil and not have the possibility of foreign citizenship at birth to any other country.
Please correct me if any of you others who have read his suit feel my interpretation is missing something, but I think it sums up what Donofrio’s stance regarding the term “natural born” citizenship status.
I would note that when I studied the Constitution in grade school as a child, this is pretty close to the example my teacher provided to us. I will explain that in another post.
This is interesting and needs an Amendment, if the SCOTUS reads that definition as you do. Because no one can stop another country from conferring its citizenship on anyone. I realize we are talking about newborns here, and no one knows which newborns would later run for President.
However, the State Dept now finds that a baby born in another country to Americans is a natural born American. John McCain is a case in point but there are many others. The Americans have to meet a standard (like the one that Stanley Ann Dunham did not meet, not having been old enough to confer citizenship on her child had he been born outside the USA). But then the child is natural born.
However, some of these natural born citizens are also automatically considered citizens of the countries in which they were born. If that's a problem for being eligible for the presidency, we would need an amendment to the Constitution.
Here is another angle, even more common. A child is born here in the United States, to two naturalized citizens. Yet their countries of origin still consider them their citizens for life, anyway, even though the two have become American citizens. Not only that, but any child of theirs is also considered an automatic citizen of that country at birth. Thus you have an American, natural born, with another country also claiming he's a citizen there, too. It seems unfair to disqualify people from the presidency if at birth through no fault of their own another country claims them as citizens.