The U.S. Supreme Court has never defined natural born Citizen any other way than born on U.S. soil to TWO U.S. Citizen parents.
The Supreme Court has said:
“Nothing is better settled at the common law than the doctrine that the children even of aliens born in a country while the parents are resident there under the protection of the government and owing a temporary allegiance thereto are subjects by birth.”
and then
“The Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, in the declaration that
“all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside,”
contemplates two sources of citizenship, and two only: birth and naturalization. Citizenship by naturalization can only be acquired by naturalization under the authority and in the forms of law. But citizenship by birth is established by the mere fact of birth under the circumstances defined in the Constitution. Every person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, becomes at once a citizen of the United States, and needs no naturalization.”
So there you go. Based on common law (the basis of jurisprudence in the United States), a person born in the country is a citizen of the country at birth. The Supreme Court then says that there are only two ways to be a citizen of the United States: to be born as a citizen or to be naturalized as a citizen.
There is NO magic third definition.
That’s what the Supreme Court says.
The definition of NBC was understood by the founders, it didn’t need to be explained. As the constitution was being written, issues surrounding who could serve as our head of state, and what that would be were hotly debated. The one requirement they all wanted was that our leader only have allegiance to the new fledgling united states. I wish I could read french, but as a product of the US education system, I’m lucky to be able to read english. When writing the constitution the founders including GW leaned heavily on the Law of Nations by Vattel 1758. In fact it was only last year that the NY public library forgave GW a late book fine of over 300K for three outstanding books one of which was an english translation of Vattel’s seminal work.
In the Law of Nations, citizenship was clearly defined as flowing from the bloodline of the father, where one was born was not relevant. To be native born, however was to be born on one’s home soil of parents who owed no other sovereign their allegiance, by renouncing any other citizenship and being a citizen of their chosen sovereign.
“It is an established maxim, received by all political writers that every person owes a natural allegiance to the government of that country in which he is born. Allegiance is defined to be a tie, that binds the subject to the state, and in consequence of his obedience, he is entitled to protection… The children of aliens, born in this state, are considered as natural born subjects, and have the same rights with the rest of the citizens.”
Zephaniah Swift, A system of the laws of the state of Connecticut: in six books, Volumes 1-2 of A System of the Laws of the State of Connecticut: pg. 163,167 (1795)
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_2_2s6.html
The following is an enormous list of legal citations, from Obama operatives, but you need to know what you are up against:
http://nativeborncitizen.wordpress.com/natural-born-quotes/
James Madison, The Founders’ Constitution Volume 2, Article 1, Section 2, Clause 2,
Madison:
It is an established maxim that birth is a criterion of allegiance. Birth however derives its force sometimes from place and sometimes from parentage, but in general place is the most certain criterion; it is what applies in the United States; it will therefore be unnecessary to investigate any other.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/79655719/James-Madison-on-Contested-Election-Citizenship-And-Birthright-22-May-1789-House-of-Representatives
“The U.S. Supreme Court has never defined natural born Citizen any other way than born on U.S. soil to TWO U.S. Citizen parents. “
Ding ding ding!
I like Rubio, but let’s face it: he’s better off fixing Florida after the mess that RINO left it in. But if a Florida politician should be running for President, it better be Lt. Col. Allen West.