NYT: McCain's Birthplace in Canal Zone Raises Eligibility Questions...

Drudge ^

[Kay Ludlow]

NYT: MCCAIN'S BIRTHPLACE IN CANAL ZONE RAISES ELIGIBILITY QUESTIONS...

[bruinbirdman]

"My cousin was born in Australia to American parents. She was raised in the States from about the age of 2. She did have dual citizenship until she was 21."

She had dual citizenship in Australia, not the U.S.A. If her parents were American citizens, she was an American citizen.

yitbos

[Dog Gone]

It may have felt like 110 degrees but even Panama City doesn’t have a monthly average of even 90 degrees as a daily high.

I can certainly understand from your personal experiences why you have no desire to visit the place again.

I suspect you saw a limited and very harsh part of the country and didn’t get to see the pleasant parts. I saw the same cemetaries of French canal workers that I’m sure you did.

It’s an untamed country and it has to remain so in order to provide the watershed for the canal. The locks must be filled with fresh water coming from the inland interior in order to work. If Panama ever runs out of fresh water, the canal will close.

It’s a small country, both geographically and by population. Barely 3 million people live there. But I’ve found them to be very nice people, and I’ve avoided the bat bites.

My wife did get stung by a stingray, though.

[bruinbirdman]

"That will be news to two of my brothers who have dual citizenship who were born abroad."

Read what I originally said, "The U.S.A does not recognize dual citizenship." I did not say other countries do not recognize dual citizenship.

I would not recommend your brothers register and vote in that foreign country. They will have effectively renounced their American citizenship.

yitbos

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

http://www.richw.org/dualcit/

(This argument has really become more than just crushingly boring to the rest of us with duals. Read up!)

“But I thought US law didn’t permit one to be a dual citizen — that if you were (by birth or otherwise), you either had to give up the other citizenship when you came of age, or else you’d lose your US status. And that if you became a citizen of another country, you’d automatically lose your US citizenship. So what’s all this talk about dual citizenship?”

“It indeed used to be the case in the US that you couldn’t hold dual citizenship (except in certain cases if you had dual citizenship from birth or childhood, in which case some Supreme Court rulings — Perkins v. Elg (1939), Mandoli v. Acheson (1952), and Kawakita v. U.S. (1952) — permitted you to keep both). However, most of the laws forbidding dual citizenship were struck down by the US Supreme Court in two cases: a 1967 decision, Afroyim v. Rusk, as well as a second ruling in 1980, Vance v. Terrazas.”

“Rules against dual citizenship still apply to some extent — at least in theory — to people who wish to become US citizens via naturalization. The Supreme Court chose to leave in place the requirement that new citizens must renounce their old citizenship during US naturalization. However, in practice, the State Department is no longer doing anything in the vast majority of situations where a new citizen’s “old country” refuses to recognize the US renunciation and continues to consider the person’s original citizenship to be in effect.”

“The official US State Department policy on dual citizenship today is that the United States does not favor it as a matter of policy because of various problems they feel it may cause, but the existence of dual citizenship is recognized (i.e., accepted) as a fact of life. That is, if you ask them if you ought to become a dual citizen, they will recommend against doing it; but if you tell them you are a dual citizen, they’ll almost always say it’s OK.”

[Dog Gone]

I would not recommend your brothers register and vote in that foreign country. They will have effectively renounced their American citizenship.

Horsepucky. In order to renounce your US citizenship, it takes a far more affirmative action than that.

Your position on this is correct only to the extent that the US does not CARE if you have dual citizenship.

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

“I would not recommend your brothers register and vote in that foreign country. They will have effectively renounced their American citizenship.”

Not true.

Those of us who are present during Panamanian elections vote as we do in U.S. elections.

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

“Your position on this is correct only to the extent that the US does not CARE if you have dual citizenship.”

You are correct.

[Dog Gone]

I am correct over 33.3% of the time according to a national auditing firm.

[Churchillspirit]

Interesting that neither of the two likely nominees was born on the US mainland - Obama having been born in Hawaii.

[chessplayer]

John Tierney re the Canal Zone;

“Usage over the century reflected the distinctions between Federal rule of the several states and ownership over foreign property, namely the Canal Zone:

The United States paid Panama annual indemnities; something a sovereign would not possibly do;

Panamanians born in the Canal Zone were citizens of Panama, not the United States;

The U.S. surrendered its rights to tax incoming goods from Panama to the Canal Zone;

United States General Laws (such as the criminal code) could not be applied in the Canal Zone;

The United States Constitution never automatically applied in the Canal Zone;

A 1930 U.S. Supreme Court decision defined the Zone’s ports as “foreign”;

The 1936 Hull-Alfaro Treaty termed the Canal Zone as the “territory of the Republic of Panama under the jurisdiction of the United States of America.” The U.S. Senate ratified this pact;

A 1948 Supreme Court decision declared that while Congress “controlled” the Canal Zone, the U.S. did not possess “sovereignty”;

After World War II, Washington officials repeatedly recognized Panama’s sovereignty in the Canal Zone, as did all presidents from Franklin Roosevelt to Carter.”

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/forum/december99/panama_canal1.html

[chessplayer]

As for military bases, isn`t one of Bush`s main arguments about Gitmo (and the reason he chose to use it) is that it is not US territory, therefore prisoners held there do not get Constitutional protections?

[icwhatudo]

I read the paragraph you linked to and saw nothing about the canal zone being US territory.

Here's the actual treaty in which the US got the rights to the Canal Zone:

Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty

Key section is "which the United States would possess and exercise if it were the sovereign of the territory within which said lands and waters are located".

The US paid for the "use, occupation and control" of the territory, it did not "become" US territory.

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

“I am correct over 33.3% of the time according to a national auditing firm.”

Well, according to the Gatun Auditing Firm, R of Panama, you are correct 100% of the time.

So there.

[bruinbirdman]

" the US does not CARE if you have dual citizenship.” "

In an American court, you are either an American citizen, or you are not.

yitbos

[Dog Gone]

I saw in a travel brochure that it’s possible that Gatun Auditing Firm reached that conclusion after bingeing on monkey sticks in 110 degree weather, so I’m going to stick with the more conservative estimate.

[HonestConservative]

Fine.

Here’s the paragraph that I refered to, I went to it from the link I posted to you. It is there.

2. Sen. Lindsay Graham, taking McCain’s side, notes that McCain’s father “was posted [in Panama] on orders from the United States government.” (One might also argue that the Canal Zone was not truly “foreign” as a U.S. possession at the time, but we can leave that out of the analysis.) But this should not be dispositive. Whether U.S. citizens are overseas on military or diplomatic assignment, or on private business, or merely tourists; whether their children are born on embassy or military grounds considered “U.S. soil” for some purposes, or are born unquestionably on foreign soil—these cannot be the considerations that dispose of the question. It is their parentage that matters. The laws of nations differ as to citizenship, and while some countries will recognize children born on their soil of sojourning parents as citizens, others will not. Would we say that the child born of U.S. parents in a country according that child no citizenship is not a U.S. citizen either, and is therefore a citizen of no country at all? That is an absurdity that cannot be imputed to the Constitution. While the framers may not have anticipated significant numbers of American military and naval forces on extended foreign assignments, with whole military families stationed overseas and children being routinely born, it is inconceivable that they could have intended that a) U.S. diplomats’ children be ineligible for the presidency due to the accident of overseas birth, or even that b) the children of private citizens traveling abroad be likewise ineligible.

I agree with the author.

[HonestConservative]

I never said it didn’t.

[Dog Gone]

In an American court, you are either an American citizen, or you are not.

Exactly. But it's not an either/or proposition.

You can be a citizen of America, and you can be a citizen of Mexico, Panama, or Canada. All at the same time.

There is nothing which forbids this and there is plenty of precedent to show this to be the case.

I know two of my brothers are dual citizens. They have two passports from two different countries, and don't tell me that either country is unaware of that. Both countries know their birthplace and place of residence and why they claim citizenship in both countries. And both recognize their citizenship.

I frankly wish I had it. I was born on summer vacation when my dad and mom came back to the states.

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

Hence it is possible to pick up a sailboat that might retail for around $300,000 for around $80,000 or less. Have you ever heard this?

What I've heard from sailors is that it's easy to follow the coastal currents and winds south as far as Panama. But at that point, if you want to return north, you basically have to sail to Hawaii, and a lot of people aren't comfortable with that kind of prolonged open water sailing. So, yes, you can pick up a boat there cheap. But then what?

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

All,

Here is one of the latest on FR right now.

Osama Obama is also dual (American-Kenyan).

This is getting better and better.

I’m signing off folks.

I’ll be back tomorrow.

Love to all of you.

Have a great, safe evening.