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“technically, natural born means getting citizenship from birth.”

No. It means ‘natural born citizen’ is a person born in the country of which the parents are citizens.

Rationale of the logic is as follows: The U. S. Supreme Court in 1939 held that a certain Miss Elg was a NATURAL BORN CITIZEN because she was born in Brooklyn, New York on October 2, 1907, her father was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 1906 under the Naturalization Act of 1906, and her mother derived her US citizenship in 1907 under the Expatriation Act of 1907. (The Expatriation Act of 1907 extended the logic linking a woman’s citizenship to her marital status and the status of her spouse. The 19th Amendment to the U.S.Constitution obliterated that link.)

You can be a “citizen” under the following circumstances:

1. You were born of one citizen parent (Obama), or
2. You were born in the US mainland (anchor babies) or
3. You were naturalized (Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger).

To be a “natural born citizen” you must be born in the US mainland of two US citizen parents.

Obama is a citizen — not a natural born citizen because he was (probably) born in the State of Hawaii of one US citizen parent.

Ms. Elg was found to be a “natural born citizen” because she was born in the mainland USA (New York) of TWO US citizen parents.

If your parents are U.S. citizens and you are born in a foreign nation, as was John McCain, you are a citizen.

Native Born citizen:

1 - This principle was clearly stated by Attorney General Edwards Pierrepont in his letter of advice to the Secretary of State Hamilton Fish, in Steinkauler’s Case, 1875, 15 Op.Atty.Gen. 15. The facts were these: One Steinkauler, a Prussian subject by birth, emigrated to the United States in 1848, was naturalized in 1854, and in the following year had a son who was born in St. Louis. Four years later Steinkauler returned to Germany taking this child and became domiciled at Weisbaden where they continuously resided. When the son reached the age of twenty years the German Government called upon him to report for military duty and his father then invoked the intervention of the American Legation on the ground that his son was a native citizen of the United States. To an inquiry by our Minister, the father declined to give an assurance that the son would return to this country within a reasonable time. On reviewing the pertinent points in the case, including the Naturalization Treaty of 1868 with North Germany, 15 Stat. 615, the Attorney General reached the following conclusion: ‘Young Steinkauler is a native-born American citizen.

2- U.S. vs Wong Kim Ark (1898) The holding in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark states that Wong Kim Ark is a native born citizen. If you look at the fact of Wong Kim Ark being born in San Francisco, CA, of Chinese parents who were loyal subjects of the Emperor of China, that holding is correct.

The importance of this case is that it is the first case decided by the Supreme Court that attempts to explain the meaning of “natural born citizen” under Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution. Natural born citizen is similar to the meaning of what a natural born subject is under Common Law in England. That is one of the reasons why the framers specifically included a grandfather clause (natural born Citizen OR a Citizen of the United States, at the time of adoption of this Constitution). The founding fathers knew that in order to be president, they had to grandfather themselves in because they were British subjects. If they didn’t, they could not be President of the U.S.

I hope this clarifies the issues. It is important because we cannot pick and choose which parts of the Constitution we want to follow, then ignore the rest. If the American people want to change the Constitution it must be done via ratification of a majority of the states. Not by resolution of the Senate or by popular vote.