1 The quotes I cited were in line with WKA’s argument that if NBS and NBC are equivalent, and a NBS includes those born of alien parents, then WKA is qualifies as a NBS under the existing common law and thus a NBC in American usage, and thus is a citizen regardless of the citizenship of his parents.
I agree they are not strictly analogous, because even in the late 1890s, people didn’t make the difficult and hazardous travel to the USA just for fun. A few did, but births from such pleasure trips were almost unheard of, so the normal alien giving birth was someone here long term for legitimate purpose.
I oppose anchor babies, and think WKA is misapplied when used to show two aliens here for any reason, including a mother only who traveled across the border just to give birth is therefor giving birth to a citizen. I think “jurisdiction” should include things like paying taxes and being subject to the draft, and if someone is exempt from those (as was Barack Obama Sr), then citizenship might not apply. The exception would be as found in another case (whose name escapes me) where a mother who raised her child as white or Indian would be considered to have given him citizenship in the country or tribe per her choice.
I also think Perkins v Elg was improperly decided...but those are the precedents that courts will look at in determining a birther case.
Barry Obama is a difficult case. The father was here long term (years), legitimately, but never intending to make the US his home. The mother was a US citizen, and she doesn’t seem to have given up her US citizenship. The father abandoned Barry at a very early age and was not legally married to his mother.
So that makes a mess. However, I remain convinced that if the US Supreme Court had ANY willingness to rule Barry was NOT a NBC, they would have done so PRIOR to his taking office.
My point on birther threads is that the courts are NOT going to do anything about Barry, so he needs to be beaten at the ballot box by conservative candidates. Money and time spent on birther legal cases are being tossed into the sewer.
“Second, whether Vattel was translated using the term natural born citizen before or after the Constitution is irrelevant as Wong Kim Ark still cited that definition of natural born citizen nearly word for word. “...all children, born in a country of [p680] parents who were its citizens, became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners.”
That is a quote from an earlier decision, and WKA is going beyond it. That earlier ruling, in the sentences that immediately follow the quote you cite, goes on in WKA’s citation:
“Some authorities go further, and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction, without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class, there have been doubts, but never as to the first. For the purposes of this case, it is not necessary to solve these doubts.”
WKA then goes on to say, “The real object of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, in qualifying the words, “All persons born in the United States” by the addition “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” would appear to have been to exclude, by the fewest and fittest words (besides children of members of the Indian tribes, standing in a peculiar relation to the National Government, unknown to the common law), the two classes of cases — children born of alien enemies in hostile occupation and children of diplomatic representatives of a foreign State — both of which, as has already been shown, by the law of England and by our own law from the time of the first settlement of the English colonies in America, had been recognized exceptions to the fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the country.”
The exceptions he cites are the exceptions noted in common law for NB subjects, so he is still using the one to define the other. The court is using NBC and citizen by birth as interchangeable at this point.
And in the dissent, WKA specifically pointed out that it made WKA eligible to run for President. Wile that interpretation of WKA is not legally binding, it does show how other justices on the court interpreted the ruling, and has had impact for the over 100 years that have followed.
No
they are not equivalent. Justice Gray would have called WKA a natural born citizen in his opinion if he was one, and he only referred to him as native born.
Native born is not the same as a natural born citizen. The Supreme Court have not mixed and matched the two phrases -- not ever. When the Supreme Court described a subject in one of their opinions as native born who was also a natural born they gave a good background so not to confuse the reader. The Supreme Court in their lexicon and usage do not mix up the two terms willy-nilly.
All natural born citizens are native born, but NOT ALL native born citizens are natural born citizens.
NBS and NBC aren't equivalent. Regardless, the aliens, under common law, had to declare an oath of allegiance to the crown. This gets overlooked.
“Some authorities go further, and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction, without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class, there have been doubts, but never as to the first. For the purposes of this case, it is not necessary to solve these doubts.”
Minor resolves the doubt by talking about early naturalization acts in the United States that didn't declare the children of aliens to be citizens until the father naturalized. There was no assumption of being a citizen at birth for children of aliens. Even in the colonies prior to the Constitution, it was recognized that you could born here of a denizen and be a denizen, not a natural born subject. Even the Civil Rights Act of 1866 shows that clearly, prior to the 14th amendment, being born here of an alien would not make one a citizen at birth. " ... all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States."
And in the dissent, WKA specifically pointed out that it made WKA eligible to run for President.
No he doesn't. It says, "Tested by this rule, Wong in Ark never became and is not a citizen of the United States ..." This allows that the WKA decision would have only made WKA eligible for Congress
No, it is not using them interchangeable.
They are indistinguishable until the Constitution Sec. 2. 2.
The only time the circumstance of birth matters is in the criteria for becoming president.
Barry O. or S., depending on what documents he ever used, Fails.
Even when one considers his birth to be in Hawaii, he admits to a divided citizenship and one can only be wholly one or other but not two things at the same time.