Answer me this. Both of my children were born overseas while I was stationed in Germany. Both my wife and I are US citizens, born in the US. Both of my children have birth certificates issued by the US State Department that are headed, “Record of the birth of a US Citizen born abroad.” Are they Natural Born Citizens?
There are several types of US Citizenship. Your children are described as statutory US citizens, i.e. they are U.S. Citizens by legislation written by the US Congress and signed into law by a US President.
Most legal scholars contend statutory US Citizens are Natural born citizens, but its debatable. For example, a statutory citizen born in Germany to US Citizen parents has the option to opt out of US Citizenship and choose to be recognized as a German.
The thought of a Natural born citizen opting out when he reaches the age of majority is contrary to very basis of the definition of a Natural born citizen. Even a naturalized citizen must renounce the citizenship of their home country before they can naturalize.
When my elementary school class was being taught the rudiments of Constitutional law on a a Marine Corps Airbase, we were told specifically that children Brats born overseas were not Constitutionally qualified.
Didn't think it was fair then, don't think it's fair now, but do think it's Constitutional.
No. Sorry. McCain was never Constitutionally qualified.
(That's why he was selected by crossover votes, to vaccinate Obama against Constitutional challenges)
I certainly feel your children should be eligible to become president since you and your wife are US citizens.
For some reason (perhaps a premonition) the founders put strict requirements based on location of birth. I think it should all be clarified through an Amendment process.
I would say they are. But that is a case which is debatable. Obama’s isn’t. He’s not a natural born citizen no matter where he was born.
I think that in your case, a case on the border line of such law, other factors, besides the US citizenship of both might be weighted. Were you stationed overseas short term or long term? Did your children get raised overseas or in America?
Rather than weight such factors, and introduce founded concerns about judicial bias and possible corruption case by case. many would say that to be natural born means both parents, and born in the boundaries of the established nation. I would assent with that harsher interpretation too, but noting that I believe that cases of children born in territories, embassies, or while on foreign travels of less than two years duration, should also be considered as natural born.
The founders and framers probably would have thought so if they used Vattel to define a Natural Born Citizen...because they (your children) were born "in the armies of state"
CHAP. XIX.
OF OUR NATIVE COUNTRY, AND SEVERAL
THINGS THAT RELATE TO IT.
§ 211. What is our country.
THE whole of the countries possessed by a nation and subject to its laws, forms, as we have already said, its territory, and is the common country of all the individuals of the nation. We have been obliged to anticipate the definition of the term, native country (§ 122), because our subject led us to treat of the love of our country -- a virtue so excellent and so necessary in a state. Supposing, then, this definition already known, it remains that we should explain several things that have a relation to this subject, and answer the questions that naturally arise from it.
§ 212. Citizens and natives.
The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights. The society is supposed to desire this, in consequence of what it owes to its own preservation; and it is presumed, as matter of course, that each citizen, on entering into society, reserves to his children the right of becoming members of it. The country of the fathers is therefore that of the children; and these become true citizens merely by their tacit consent. We shall soon see whether, on their coming to the years of discretion, they may renounce their right, and what they owe to the society in which they were born. I say, that, in order to be of the country, it is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; for, if he is born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country.
§ 213. Inhabitants.
The inhabitants, as distinguished from citizens, are foreigners, who are permitted to settle and stay in the country. Bound to the society by their residence, they are subject to the laws of the state while they reside in it; and they are obliged to defend it, because it grants them protection, though they do not participate in all the rights of citizens. They enjoy only the advantages which the law or custom gives them. The perpetual inhabitants are those who have received the right of perpetual residence. These are a kind of citizens of an inferior order, and are united to the society without participating in all its advantages. Their children follow the condition of their fathers; and, as the state has given to these the right of perpetual residence, their right passes to their posterity.
§ 214. Naturalization.(58)
A nation, or the sovereign who represents it, may grant to a foreigner the quality of citizen, by admitting him into the body of the political society. This is called naturalization. There are some states in which the sovereign cannot grant to a foreigner all the rights of citizens, -- for example, that of holding public offices -- and where, consequently, he has the power of granting only an imperfect naturalization. It is here a regulation of the fundamental law, which limits the power of the prince. In other states, as in England and Poland, the prince cannot naturalize a single person, without the concurrence of the nation, represented by its deputies. Finally, there are states, as, for instance, England, where the single circumstance of being born in the country naturalizes the children of a foreigner.
§ 215. Children of citizens born in a foreign country.
[Edit: Notice this talks of "citizens" and not "natural born citizens." The Congress passed the Naturalization Act of 1790 in an attempt to extend NBC status to children born (of citizens parents) "beyond the sea, or out of the limits of the United States" which would apply to §215 and §216 That Act was repealed with the Act of 1795. ]
It is asked whether the children born of citizens in a foreign country are citizens? The laws have decided this question in several countries, and their regulations must be followed.(59) By the law of nature alone, children follow the condition of their fathers, and enter into all their rights (§ 212); the place of birth produces no change in this particular, and cannot, of itself, furnish any reason for taking from a child what nature has given him; I say "of itself," for, civil or political laws may, for particular reasons, ordain otherwise. But I suppose that the father has not entirely quitted his country in order to settle elsewhere. If he has fixed his abode in a foreign country, he is become a member of another society, at least as a perpetual inhabitant; and his children will be members of it also.
§ 216. Children born at sea.
As to children born at sea, if they are born in those parts of it that are possessed by their nation, they are born in the country: if it is on the open sea, there is no reason to make a distinction between them and those who are born in the country; for, naturally, it is our extraction, not the place of our birth, that gives us rights: and if the children are born in a vessel belonging to the nation, they may be reputed born in its territories; for, it is natural to consider the vessels of a nation as parts of its territory, especially when they sail upon a free sea, since the state retains its jurisdiction over those vessels. And as, according to the commonly received custom, this jurisdiction is preserved over the vessels, even in parts of the sea subject to a foreign dominion, all the children born in the vessels of a nation are considered as born in its territory. For the same reason, those born in a foreign vessel are reputed born in a foreign country, unless their birth took place in a port belonging to their own nation; for, the port is more particularly a part of the territory; and the mother, though at that moment on board a foreign vessel, is not on that account out of the country. I suppose that she and her husband have not quitted their native country to settle elsewhere.
§ 217. Children born in the armies of the state.
For the same reasons also, children born out of the country, in the armies of the state, or in the house of its minister at a foreign court, are reputed born in the country; for a citizen who is absent with his family, on the service of the state, but still dependent on it, and subject to its jurisdiction, cannot be considered as having quitted its territory.
§ 218. Settlement.
Settlement is a fixed residence in any place, with an intention of always staying there. A man does not, then, establish his settlement in any place, unless he makes sufficiently known his intention of fixing there, either tacitly or by an express declaration. However, this declaration is no reason why, if he afterwards changes his mind, he may not transfer his settlement elsewhere. In this sense, a person who stops at a place upon business, even though he stay a long time, has only a simple habitation there, but has no settlement. Thus, the envoy of a foreign prince has not his settlement at the court where he resides.
The natural, or original settlement, is that which we acquire by birth, in the place where our father has his; and we are considered as retaining it, till we have abandoned it, in order to choose another. The acquired settlement (adscititium) is that where we settle by our own choice.
§ 219. Vagrants.
Vagrants are people who have no settlement. Consequently, those born of vagrant parents have no country, since a man's country is the place where, at the time of his birth, his parents had their settlement (§ 122), or it is the state of which his father was then a member, which comes to the same point; for, to settle for ever in a nation, is to become a member of it, at least as a perpetual inhabitant, if not with all the privileges of a citizen. We may, however, consider the country of a vagrant to be that of his child, while that vagrant is considered as not having absolutely renounced his natural or original settlement.
§ 220. Whether a person may quit his country.
Many distinctions will be necessary, in order to give a complete solution to the celebrated question, whether a man may quit his country or the society of which he is a member.(60) -- 1. The children are bound by natural ties to the society in which they were born; they are under an obligation to show themselves grateful for the protection it has afforded to their fathers, and are in a great measure indebted to it for their birth and education. They ought, therefore, to love it, as we have already shown (§ 122), to express a just gratitude to it, and requite its services as far as possible, by serving it in turn. We have observed above (§ 212), that they have a right to enter into the society of which their fathers were members. But every man is born free; and the son of a citizen, when come to the years of discretion, may examine whether it be convenient for him to join the society for which he was destined by his birth. If he does not find it advantageous to remain in it, he is at liberty to quit it, on making it a compensation for what it has done in his favour,1 and preserving, as far as his new engagements will allow him, the sentiments of love and gratitude he owes it. A man's obligations to his natural country may, however, change, lessen, or entirely vanish, according as he shall have quitted it lawfully, and with good reason, in order to choose another, or has been banished from it deservedly or unjustly, in due form of law or by violence.
2. As soon as the son of a citizen attains the age of manhood, and acts as a citizen, he tacitly assumes that character; his obligations, like those of others who expressly and formally enter into engagements with society, become stronger and more extensive: but the case is very different with respect to him of whom we have been speaking. When a society has not been formed for a determinate time, it is allowable to quit it, when that separation can take place without detriment to the society. A citizen may therefore quit the state of which he is a member, provided it be not in such a conjuncture when he cannot abandon it without doing it a visible injury. But we must here draw a distinction between what may in strict justice be done, and what is honourable and conformable to every duty -- in a word, between the internal, and the external obligation. Every man has a right to quit his country, in order to settle in any other, when by that step he does not endanger the welfare of his country. But a good citizen will never determine on such a step without necessity, or without very strong reasons. It is taking a dishonourable advantage of our liberty, to quit our associates upon slight pretences, after having derived considerable advantages from them; and this is the case of every citizen, with respect to his country.
3. As to those who have the cowardice to abandon their country in a time of danger, and seek to secure themselves, instead of defending it, they manifestly violate the social compact, by which all the contracting parties engaged to defend themselves in a united body, and in concert; they are infamous deserters, whom the state has a right to punish severely.2
No.
Not born in the geographical territory of the several states.
Ops33, first, let's be clear, your situation is not Barack’s.
This is a circumstance the Supreme Court should address. That it hasn't been clarified was acknowledged by the Senate Judiciary Committee in February of 2008, Senate Bill 2678 “To clarify the law and ensure that children born to United States citizens while serving overseas in the military are eligible to become President.” Whether clarification by the Senate would have any legal meaning is doubtful. Clarification of the Constitution is reserved for the Supreme Court. Congress can only change the Constitution through amendment.
Currently there is uncertainty about children of citizens overseas in the military. Vattel, considered by many of our founders and framers to be the major influence upon our common law, specifically included children of military citizens as “reputed” natural born.
In my opinion the Supreme Court could clarify Article II’s definition, a definition, like most of terms used in the Constitution, provided by our common law and common usage at the time of the Framers (As Madison explains in a letter which Mark Levin included in Liberty and Tyranny on p37). That is was Chief Justice Morrison Waite meant when he said:
“The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of 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.”
While there are a few conservative Republicans in the House, and some to come in the Senate, this might be the time for a patriot to get credit for a clarifying amendment to Article II. Seeing how effectively the left confused citizens about the definition of natural born citizen, in spite of its appearance in so many Supreme Court decisions. Again, Obots misdirect by claiming “not defined in the Constitution.” The Constitution was not only not intended to be a legal reference, it was specifically created presuming the common language so that all literate citizens could understand its meaning.
From the minutes Supreme Court hearings in 2000, Justice Ginsberg was surprised and disappointed when informed that children of citizens born overseas were not eligible to be president. Nothing prevents them from running, but the Constitution defines eligibility. Calero of Central America ran as a Socialist Party candidate and is not even a citizens. The issue needs to be clarified. It may be that the Supreme Court is avoiding the complications which might arise if they use the fact that Vattel includes your circumstance? Is every principle and definition in Vattel Constitutional? Almost certainly not. But justices have cited Vattel again and again for so much of our law, I'm sure they can find a way.