I'm just curious, I am a naturalized citizen so I know that I will never be eligible. I understand that and accept it. When I joined the club I swore to go by the club's rules. But since 2008 I've wondered about my children more than once. They both were born in the US, from a US citizen father, but I only had a green card at the time of their birth. Should they want to run one day, are they eligible or not? I don't think their case is unique, so I wish the SCOTUS would give a final definition of natural born citizen. But I won't hold my breath waiting for it!
Born of parents who are US citizens at time of birth is what I have always been taught. My stepfather was born in Winnepeg and became a US citizen after going to classes and taking tests, taking the oath, etc. He was a naturalized US Citizen. A natural born citizen would never have to do anything other than enjoy the good fortune of his/her two US citizen parents.
The big push now, with the Obama precedent, is to make the presidency open to all comers and both parties are simpatico on this issue - that's why there is so much disagreement - IMO
According to the Vattel definition of "Natural Born Citizen," from which the writers of the Constitution undoubtedly took that term, your children are ineligible for the presidency and vice-presidency because you, their father, were not a citizen at the time of their birth.
But they are eligible for any other federal office.
“But a number of Freepers have added that both parents have to be citizens at the time of that person’s birth. How does that fit in with your definition?”
It doesn’t, but there is no ‘two-parent’ requirement.
Prior to Independence, everyone born the in the colonies was a “natural born subject” of the King, including those born of alien parents. Between Independence and the adoption of the Constitution, state legislatures used two terms interchangeably: ‘natural born subject’ and ‘natural born citizen’. Although the Constitution used the phrase NBC, the legislatures sometimes used ‘natural born subject’ in their citizenship laws.
With time, only NBC was used, and by the mid 1800s, most people simply used ‘citizen’, since the only distinction in US law between a naturalized citizen and a natural born citizen is that the latter can run for President.
In 1898, the US Supreme Court discussed at length the meaning of both NBC & the 14th Amendment, and concluded they were interchangeable - that anyone who met the NBC clause met the 14th Amendment wording, and vice-versa.
Thus, since 1898, there has been no doubt in the law. A natural born citizen is someone who is a citizen by birth, not needing naturalization. Anyone who tells you otherwise is blowing smoke up your butt. You will notice that no birther arguing for a two citizen parent requirement has EVER won in court. You should also notice that 0 of 50 states agree with them.
The law defines both natutalized and born citizenship. Over time the exact definition and requirements for each has changed....
For instance, Wong Kim Arc, born in the US to legally residing non-citizens, was declared by the USSC to be a “born” citizen through the application of the 14th amendment which was written to provide born citiznship (ie no need to naturalize) to former slaves (born in the US of non-citizen parents), and the British custom (actually Feudal Europe) that says all those born in the king’s land belong to the King....Birth to the soil, the statis of a feudal serf. The so called “natural born subject” whose loyality from birth is to the land/crown. (Jus solis.)
Both an older, and at the same time more modern, concept is that of a Natural Born Citizen. A citizen being someone that the Government was responsible TO. Old Roman law was the first in Europe to use this term, followed by later 18th Century European jurists, who refined the term to it’s modern definition.
A construction of language, rather than law, a Natural Born Citizen is someone whose Citizenship is due to the birthright bestowed by birth on the native soil AND the bloodright bestowed by citizen parents. In others words...a “Native” (as opposed to the very different construction of “native born.”) Therefore a Natural born citizen is someone born in a country to parents who are it’s citizens. These people form the majority of most societies and form the foundation for it’s continuation.
As a sidenote you’ll note that women, prior to the passage of women’s sufferage did not hold citizenship separate from their father/husband, so in effect, prior to the 22nd Amendment, (and the 14th), the citizenship of the father was the real determing factor of a child’s citizenship as the wife/mother shared the father’s citizenship.
In US law the distinction of being a Natural Born Citizen matters in only one area....that of being eligible for holding the Office of President. It has no other cachet for a citizen, or in a citizen’s rights/responsibilities. There is scant, actually no, legal decisions concerning the application of Article II eligibility requirements, probably due to the fact that it has only mattered less than 44 times in our Nation’s history, although the judicial record is replete with many instances of the USSC, in deciding citizenship cases, refering to the term and it’s meaning, most notebly in Minor v Happersett. Although the definition of naturalized and born citizenship have changed over time the term Natural Born Citizen has remained constant. It is, after all, a matter of language not law. Keep in mind that either born or naturalized, there are no “classes” of US citizenship.
This requirement of birth on the soil to citizen parents is not something that was added by Freepers in posts to a 21st Century public forum. Far from it.
As I stated above it is a matter of language, intentially used by the Framers in writting the Constitution, whose understanding of a Natural Born Citizen is a “Native”,...someone born to the soil AND To citizen parents. Jus solis AND Jus sanqunis
(to the soil and to the blood.)
So no, I’m sorry, your children are not Natural Born Citizens, although they certainly are “born citizens.” Take heart, your grandchildren, if your children marry US citizen spouses, and have their children in the US, WILL be NBC and eligible to become President......It’ll just take another family generation....