Just because old civics and history books mention that a child born abroad to two citizens parents is a ‘Natural born Citizen’, doesn’t make it law.
The following is often used to support people like Rubio who seek to be President, but it was superceded centuries ago and is a false argument.
“The First U.S. Congress included in the 1790 Immigration & Naturalization Act language to alert the State Department to the fact that Americans born abroad are “natural born” citizens” and are not to be viewed as foreigners due to foreign birth. They were not granted citizenship via that US statute rather citizenship was stated as a fact that must be recognized by immigration authorities. These children were not citizens by any other means than natural law, according to Congress, and statutory law was written to insure that their natural citizenship was recognized.”
Firstly, this is not a reasonable explanation. It fails to recognize that Congress only has powers over naturalization and has no power to define “natural born Citizen”, which has nothing to do with naturalization. Furthermore, if Congress wants to tell the State Department something, they don’t have to enact legislation to do it.
But more important is that all of the following naturalization acts, 1795, 1802, etc., were also passed to naturalize the children of U.S. citizens born abroad. And the words “natural born” were repealed in the 1795 Naturalization Act and never returned again.
A natural born citizen does not require a law, or statute, to determine nationality or citizenship. Born in a nation (jus solis) of citizen parents (jus sanguinis) a child is naturally a citizen, period.
[The latin expression, ‘jus solis’, means “of the soil”; ‘jus sanguinis’ means “of the blood”.]
Many military families are surprised to discover that their children, born in military hospitals at overseas locations, are not eligible to be President though deriving their citizenship from their parents.
When the U.S.Constitution was written I’m sure that the nation’s founders never foresaw U.S. military bases in foreign locales manned by millions of Americans and accompanied by their families.
“Just because old civics and history books mention that a child born abroad to two citizens parents is a ‘Natural born Citizen’, doesn’t make it law.”
Naturally, it doesn’t. I was calling attention to the distortion of history and education via the Progressives.
Those of us who were educated years ago, remember what a Natural Born citizen was. Our textbooks and history books and teachers and professors ALL confirmed to us what a Natural Born citizen was. However, now that the Progressives have taken over, they are no longer teaching our children what a Natural Born citizen really is.
Cheers!