Replies

The Senate as of now apparently also must judge if member and birthright citizen Kamala Harris is a "natural born citizen" eligible under Amendment XII to become Vice President, taking into account that "natural born" was defined by British statutory law when the founding fathers got their legal education. The Senate probably doesn't get to decide on Senator Harris' qualifications for Vice President if Senator Harris resigns from the Senate, but might again get to decide if she wishes to preside over the Senate.
According to someone who used this site: "Harris is not a natural born citizen (her mother is Indian and her father is Jamaican; neither were [US]citizens at the time of Harris’ birth)."
Kamala Harris is in my opinion unqualified and quite possibly numerically unentitled to be Vice President of the United States.

This latest resurgence of the birther argument belongs buried with the Obama birther argument.

There are two cloasses of citizen, and two only: natural born and naturalized. Natural born citizens are "born citizens," to use the emphasis applied by John Jay writing to George Washington at the time of the constitutional convention in 1787. Naturalized citizens were not U.S. citizens at birth, but at some later time acquired citizenship via legal process. Only aliens are eligible for naturalization.

Birthers do not cite to British common law when citing authority for the two citizen parent crap which is nowhere in United States law, or British law. It is cited to Emer de Vattel and his book, The Law of Nations. Vattel was Swiss and wrote his volume in French. He died 12/28/1767 before the Declaration of Independence and nothing he said had anything to do with the United States which did not exist in the lifetime of Vattel. For those not acquainted with the term Law of Nations, it is an old fashioned term which has been replaced by the more modern variant, International Law. United States citizenship status is determined solely by United States law. International Law applies to relationships between nation states and has never controlled the domestic determination of the citizenship of anyone, anywhere.

When President Chester Arthur was born, his father was a citizen of Ireland.

See United States Supreme Court, Wong Kim Ark at 169 U.S. 658-59:

It thus clearly appears that, by the law of England for the last three centuries, beginning before the settlement of this country and continuing to the present day, aliens, while residing in the dominions possessed by the Crown of England, were within the allegiance, the obedience, the faith or loyalty, the protection, the power, the jurisdiction of the English Sovereign, and therefore every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign State or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born.
III. The same rule was in force in all the English Colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established. In the early case of The Charming Betsy, (1804) it appears to have been assumed by this court that all persons born in the United States were citizens of the United States, Chief Justice Marshall saying: "Whether a person born within the United States, or becoming a citizen according to the established laws of the country, can divest himself absolutely of that character otherwise than in such manner as may be prescribed by law is a question which it is not necessary at present to decide." 6 U. S. 2 Cranch 64, 6 U. S. 119.
In Inglis v. Sailors' Snug Harbor (1833), 3 Pet. 99, in which the plaintiff was born in the city of New York about the time of the Declaration of Independence, the justices of this court (while differing in opinion upon other points) all agreed that the law of England as to citizenship by birth was the law of the English Colonies in America. Mr. Justice Thompson, speaking for the majority of the court, said: "It is universally admitted, both in the English courts and in those of our own country, that all persons born within the Colonies of North America, whilst subject to the Crown of Great Britain, are natural-born British subjects."

All persons born in the United States, and subject to its jurisdiction, are citizens of the United States. The Constitution does not say a mumbling word about the status of the parents. If the child is subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, i.e., subject to its laws (does not enjoy diplomatic immunity), the child born in the United States is born a citizen thereof. It is constitutional law and no conditions can be added that are not there.

Except for diplomats and royalty, aliens (legal and illegal) are subject to the laws of the United States. The concept that aliens in the U.S. are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States leads to the absurdity that any alien could kill your dogs and rape your wife and daughters and could not be prosecuted for their crimes. The U.S. judicial system cannot prosecute those not subject to the laws of the United States. Accredited diplomats may be expelled but not prosecuted, unless their immunity is waived.