Natural Born Citizenship: Free and Clear

The concept of natural born Citizenship is clear and concise, to anyone with a rational mind. Although some may wish to contort its meaning to fit the presidential candidate of their choice, natural law is incapable of such bias. It takes two parents to produce a child, one male and one female, but you would never know it if your source of information is the lamestream media. By its logic, only one parent is sufficient.

Epigrammatically speaking, if both of your parents were U.S. Citizens at the time of your birth, you are without question a natural born Citizen of the United States. The location of your birth matters little. You could have been born in Kenya, Canada, Panama, or perhaps on the Moon, but as long as both parents were U.S. Citizens, at the time of your birth, you are without question a natural born Citizen.

According to Vattel's Law of Nations, Chapter 19 § 212: "The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights... The country of the fathers is therefore that of the children; and these become true citizens merely by their tacit consent."

You can think of natural born citizenship as free and clear citizenship. In other words, the rights of the parents (plural) are passed to their children. Thus, when both parents are U.S. Citizens, their offspring are natural born U.S. Citizens, free and clear. No other country has a claim of right. Comprende?

However, if at the time of your birth, your father was a Citizen of Kenya and your mother of the U.S., this would pose a problem. Oh no! What's the problem? The problem is duality. Under such circumstances, the child would be a Citizen of Kenya (a British subject pre-1964) by virtue of its father, and equally a Citizen of the United States by virtue of its mother. There's nothing free and clear in this circumstance. Upon the age of consent, such a child may claim citizenship with one country or the other; however, citizenship does not equal natural born citizenship.

You might not like the result of the above graphic, but that's simply the way it is. Here are some recent examples.

Is John McCain a natural born Citizen? John McCain's parents were both U.S. Citizens at the time of his birth, thus he is a natural born Citizen. It matters not that he was born on a military base in Panama. He could have been born in Siberia. No matter where he was born, McCain is a natural born American Citizen by virtue of his parent's common nationality, at the time of his birth. You got that?

Is Ted Cruz a natural born Citizen? Ted Cruz's father was a Cuban Citizen and his mother a U.S. Citizen, at the time of his birth. Thus, whether born in the U.S., Cuba, or Canada (where he was actually born) he is not a natural born Citizen of either.

Cruz was born with citizenship rights to both Cuba and the United States. Although he may have chosen U.S. citizenship, at the age of majority, natural born citizenship is not something one chooses. Natural born citizenship is a right passed from one's parents at birth. As such, Ted Cruz is no more a natural born Citizen than is Barack Obama.

The U.S. is filled with undocumented aliens, birthright Citizens, permanent residents, dual status Citizens, naturalized Citizens, and natural born Citizens. Whether the children of undocumented foreigners, born on U.S. soil, are U.S. Citizens by birthright is questionable. However, without question, such children are not natural born Citizens of the United States.

The main issue is this. According to Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution, "No Person except a natural born Citizen shall be eligible to the Office of President." So where does that leave Ted Cruz? Is he a U.S. Citizen? Sure, if he affirmed. Is he a natural born Citizen? Due to the citizenship status of his parent's, at the time of his birth, he clearly is not.

Is Ted Cruz eligible to run for the presidency? Technically no, since he is not a natural born Citizen. But since you allowed Barack Obama, who is plain as day not a natural born Citizen, why stop Ted Cruz or anyone else for that matter? If it weren't for that confounded Constitution, we could nominate whomever we yearned, without conscience. But, since we do have a blessed Constitution, it's up to us, rather than fainthearted federal judges, to see that it is upheld.

Okay, so then in my case, did my daughter, having been born abroad, â€œderiveâ€ her citizenship from me (a U.S. citizen at birth) or is she a naturalized citizen?

Does it matter? The rights and privileges of a naturalized citizen are exactly the same as a natural born citizen with the sole exception of eligibility for the Presidency.

Unless she's going to run for President, it won't make a hill of beans difference.

But for what it's worth, the case of children born to Americans serving abroad is covered under the Vattel doctrine of natural law.

So your daughter would be considered "natural born" according to Vattel.

So, if a mother and father both American citizens have a child born to them in Indonesia, does that child have a natural connection and allegiance to Indonesia serving to make the child a Natural Born Citizen of Indonesia despite their refusal to consider the child one of their own, or is the child's natural allegiance to the nationality of the parents, making the child a Natural Born Citizen of their country? Or is the child born stateless, with no right or residence, protection and nurture from any society or nation, and without the right to obtain documentation and passport from anywhere by natural right?

Indonesia has a law (I've seen it) that specifies if an Indonesian man marries a foreign woman who has children before the children turn the age of five, the children are automatically adopted as Indonesian nationals.

Barack Obama had Indonesian nationality.

Does the country of the parents' birth have the sovereign right to extend its protection and nurture to the children of its citizens as Natural Born Citizens if that is the wish of the polity?

Yes. Jus Sanguinus makes sense. Jus Soli is Stupid and Feudal.

So European countries allow the citizenship of grand fathers and/or grand mothers to be grounds for the claim. Thus a child born on US soil of two US citizens would be able to "claim" that other citizenship.

The issue involves the citizenship status of one's parents at birth. As long as 14 years a resident, and 35 years of age, the above is irrelevant.

Two things to note.

1) this census was taken AFTER Sen Cruz was born (1970).

2) It was not LEGALLY POSSIBLE for his mother to be a Canadian citizen as Canada required 5 years of residence to apply for citizenship. Since the Cruzes moved to Canada in 1967, this requirement could not have been met. His mother was a US Citizen at his birth.

Without confirming or denying that this is in fact an accurate representation of Indonesian Law, I can tell you that if an Indonesian woman marries a foreign man and this couple has a child born in indonesia, that child will not be considered an Indonesian by birth, ever.

Actually I just checked and I have learned that everything I am saying about this situation has been invalidated by changes made to the Indonesian nationality law in 2006. So I need to specify that I am talking about the previous, pre-2006 situation.

“Hmmm. I wasn’t aware of this maneuver. The U.S. doesn’t formally recognize dual citizenship, but doesn’t explicitly forbid it.”

I think it’s one of those “don’t ask, don’t tell” kind of situations.

John Valentine said: "... where wives no longer adopt the nationality of their husbands, women as well as men must be able to bequeath their nationality to their children by the operation of natural law. "

Interesting how we can both understand the same facts and yet draw different conclusions.

The Founders, as you claim, were concerned at the very least that a father's nationality could affect the interests and loyalty of his child.

The situation is now changed such that we must recognize that a mother's nationality might also do so.

The conclusion you draw is that some tendency to disloyalty must be accepted. The conclusion I draw is that none should be accepted.

It's obvious that the Founders intentionally meant to exclude some citizens. The number I would exclude is only slightly more than the Founders, as you claim, would have excluded, leaving many, many millions more candidates than those from which our Founders could choose.

Your claim is that a person can be the "natural born citizen" of more than one nation. I will not accept that this is what our Founders intended.

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