Again, here is what Ankeny said in Footnote 14: “We note the fact that the Court in Wong Kim Ark did not actually pronounce the plaintiff a “natural born Citizen” using the Constitution’s Article II language is immaterial. For all but forty-four people in our nation’s history (the forty-four Presidents), the dichotomy between who is a natural born citizen and who is a naturalized citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment is irrelevant. The issue addressed in Wong Kim Ark was whether Mr. Wong Kim Ark was a citizen of the United States on the basis that he was born in the United States. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. at 705, 18 S. Ct. at 478.”
(1) The Court admitted that Wong Kim Ark did not hold in words that Wong was a “natural born Citizen.” But then it still forged ahead and used the decision as precedent for the notion that it changed Minor’s American “common-law” definition of a “natural born Citizen.” This really is a fantastic feat, even just considering that Wong did not address whether Minor’s American “common-law” definition was right or wrong or if right why it needed to be expanded to include children born in the United States to alien parents.
(2) Moreover, the Ankeny court is mistaken in concluding that simply because Wong analyzed under the Fourteenth Amendment the question of whether Wong was a “citizen of the United States on the basis that he was born in the United States,” the Court gave us a new definition of a “natural born Citizen.”
First, the court begged the question. The Court relied upon Wong Kim Ark to come to its decision. Wong Kim Ark is a Fourteenth Amendment case. Ankeny assumed without analyzing the question whether the Fourteenth Amendment includes a definition of a “natural born Citizen.” This is amazing since the plain text of the Amendment speaks of a “citizen of the United States,” and not a “natural born Citizen,” the former being a class of “citizen” which Article II, Section, 1, Clause 5 expressly states was no longer eligible to be President in the future. Also, there is no evidence in the amendment’s debates which suggest that the amendment repealed or amended Article II’s “natural born Citizen” clause.
Second, if the Wong Kim Ark was giving us a new definition of a “natural born Citizen,” it would have referred to Minor’s definition and told us it was expanding that definition to include children born in the United States to alien parents. The Court would then not have just held Wong to be a Fourteenth Amendment “citizen of the United States,” but also a “natural born Citizen.”
Third , under the American “common-law” definition of a “natural born Citizen,” mere birth in the country had never been sufficient to make one a “natural born Citizen.” Citizen parents had always been required as an additional factor. After all, Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 says “natural born Citizen,” not “born Citizen.” Even Wong Kim Ark recognized the difference between a “natural born Citizen” and a “citizen of the United States” at birth when it said twice in its decision: “The child of an alien, if born in the country, is as much a citizen as the natural-born child of a citizen, and by operation of the same principle [born in the country].’” Wong Kim Ark, at 665-66 and 694 (citing and quoting Horace Binney, The Alienigenae of the United States Under the Present Naturalization Laws (1853).
So what Ankeny did is amend the Constitution without a constitutional amendment. Needless to say, the Ankeny decision is unconstitutional and very bad law.
The issue addressed in Wong Kim Ark was whether Mr. Wong Kim Ark was a citizen of the United States on the basis that he was born in the United States.
Courts can only answer the question before the bar.
The question wasn't whether or not Wong Kim was natural born, but whether he was native born.
Your obviously well enough versed in the subject to be aware how judges like to 'waltz with words' in their decisions, so
The right of citizenship never descends in the legal sense, either by the common law or under the common naturalization acts. It is incident to birth in the country, or it is given personally by statute. The child of an alien, if born in the country, is as much a citizen as the natural born child of a citizen, and by operation of the same principle. [p666]
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The child of an alien, if born in the country, is as much a citizen as the natural born child of a citizen, and by operation of the same principle.
The desicion states Wong Kim was just as much a Citizen as a natural born, it never said he WAS a natural born.
A comparative statement would be - a car is as much a vehicle as a truck. It's a true statement, but the statement itself still doesn't turn the car INTO a truck.
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It's a very fine point of law, and unfortunately beyond the ken of some.
But I applaud you for attempting to educate them. :-)