Posted on 10/20/2011 1:47:23 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Unable to prevent Barack Obama from becoming president, rigid followers of the Constitution have turned their attention to another young, charismatic politician many think could one day occupy the White House.
The birthers are calling for U.S.Sen. Marco Rubio, the budding Republican star from Florida.
"It's nothing to do with him personally. But you can't change the rules because you like a certain person. Then you have no rules," said New Jersey lawyer Mario Apuzzo.
Forget about allegedly Photoshopped birth certificates; the activists are not challenging whether Rubio was born in Miami. Rather, they say Rubio is ineligible under Article 2 of the Constitution, which says "no person except a natural born citizen … shall be eligible to the Office of President."
The rub is that "natural born citizen" was never defined.
[snip]
"It's a little confusing, but most scholars think it's a pretty unusual position for anyone to think the natural born citizen clause would exclude someone born in the U.S.," said Polly Price, a law professor at Emory University in Atlanta who specializes in immigration and citizenship.
Price said natural born was likely drawn from the concept that anyone born in what was once a colony was considered a subject and parental status was not a factor.
But there is sufficient muddiness to fuel the birthers, many still angry with the Republican establishment for not taking their case against Obama more seriously. Rubio was among them, saying he did not think it was an issue.
"The other shoe has dropped," conservative figure Alan Keyes said on a radio program last month. "Now you've got Republicans talking about Marco Rubio for president when it's obviously clear that he does not qualify. Regardless of party label, they don't care about Constitution. It's all just empty, lying lip service."
[snip]
(Excerpt) Read more at tampabay.com ...
“Born on American soil? Yes? Eligible to be President.
Born on American soil? No? Not eligible to be President.
Nothing else matters.”
It would be better for you to post on things you actually know about.....start now, educate yourself, and follow Satin Doll’s links in this thread.
The term “Natural Born Citizen” has a centuries old usage starting in Roman Law, and is not unique to the US Constitution. The Founders used, for them, the current usage of the term as understood by European jurists and articulated in Vattel’s Law of Nations, Natural Law (1757), when writting the Constitution. There were several copies of this book, supplied by Ben Franklin, at the Constitutional Convention, both in the original French and in it’s english translation.
There is ample evidence of this, and there are numerious USSC decisions that echo Vattel’s words “....born in country to parents that were its citizens.....” when refering to the term NBC.
To ignore the above, is the height fo willful ignorance, given the available research on the term NBC......
This issues has been discussed ad nauseam here on FR, with a few FReepers claiming that both jus sanguinis (based on the citizenship of the parents) and jus soli (based on the place of birth) are required for someone to be a natural-born citizen under Article II, section 1, clause 5 of the Constitution. However, the reality is that a “natural-born citizen” is a term used in contradistinction to “naturalized citizen,” since one refers to persons to whom citizenship was legally conferred at birth, while the other refers to persons to whom citizenship was legally conferred at some point after birth. A person who is a U.S. citizen at birth is thus a “natural-born citizen” of the U.S. An excellent academic discussion on the subject (published in 1988) may be found here: http://yalelawjournal.org/images/pdfs/pryor_note.pdf
Citizenship is conferred at birth pursuant to applicable law, and different countries have adopted jus soli, jus sanguinis, or a combination of both. In the U.S., federal law confers citizenship at birth to persons who are born (i) within U.S. territory (the 50 states, DC, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and Northern Mariana Islands) but only if not the child of a foreign diplomat, or (ii) outside of U.S. territory if one of both parents are U.S. citizens but with certain U.S. residency requirements for the citizen parent(s). So the U.s. has adopted both jus sanguinis and jus soli, and our jus sanguinis has a residency component for the parents, while our jus soli does consider whether the parents are foreign diplomats. Either way, if one is a U.S. citizen at birth, one is, by definition, a natural-born citizen, not a naturalized citizen.
It is a red herring to claim that persons who are U.S. citizens at birth but who may also be eligible for some other country’s citizenship should not be considered natural-born citizens due to “dual allegiances” or something. My mother was born a Cuban citizen in Havana, Cuba, and although she is a naturalized U.S. citizen (and became one before I was born, not that it matters, since I was born in U.S. soil), Castro’s Cuba does not recognize that she renounced her Cuban citizenship upon becoming an American. And there are plenty of coutries with crazy citizenship laws that would make many Americans eligible to claim birthright citizenship from such country. In fact, Germany confers German citizenship to the grandchilren of Germans irrespective of where they were born or of the citizenship of the parents, so a child born in Iowa to parents born in Kansas may be eligible for German citizenship. However, it is irrelevant what the laws of a foreign country say, because according to U.S. law that child is a U.S. citizen. People who insist that—despite U.S. law being very clear in conferring U.S. citizenship to children born in the U.S. to parents who aren’t foreign diplomats—only children born to two U.S.-citizen parents qualify as natural-born citizens are permitting foreign countries to decide what the scope of U.S. law should be. Thus, when Chester Arthur was born in Vermont, he was a U.S. citizen at birth despite the fact that he could have been deemed a British subject under British law because his father was a British subject (and, like Marco Rubio’s parents, did not become a naturalized U.S. citizen until years after his son was born); James Buchanan, Woodrow Wilson and Herbert Hoover also had one parent who was born a British subject, and U.S. treatment as natural-born citizens should not depend on whether the UK considered the child to be a British subject at birth. The constitutional requirement that the president be a natural-born citizen presupposed that the U.S. Congress, not some foreign legislature, would legislate who should be considered U.S. citizens at birth.
And the same goes for a child of Americans that is born abroad. If the U.S. citizen parent(s) meet(s) the U.S. residency requirements set forth in U.S. law, their children born abroad are U.S. citizens at birth irrespective of what the foreign country’s laws say. John McCain was born in a hospital in Colón, Panama (which lay just outside the U.S. jurisdiction of the Panama Canal Zone where his father was stationed), and Panama law would consider him to be a Panamanian citizen, but U.S. law deems McCain, the child of two Americans, to be a U.S. citizen at birth, and that’s that.
So Marco Rubio and Bobby Jindal are natural-born citizens eligible to become president, as is John McCain. And if Barack Obama was indeed born in Hawaii (as indicated by the birth certificate he provided, whose authenticity I’ll leave to others to discuss), then he’s a natural-born citizen as well, despite his father never having become a U.S. citizen. There’s a reason why those who disputed Obama’s constitutional qualifications were known as “Birthers”: he is the only president other than Chester Arthur whose qualifications as president hinged upon being born in the U.S. (While Obama’s mother was a U.S. citizen, she was only 18 years old when Obama was born, so she had not resided in the U.S. for at least 5 years after turning 14 when he was born (one of the legal requirements for citizenship at birth for babies born abroad before 1986 with one U.S. citizen parent); if Obama was born outside of U.S. territory, he would not have been a U.S. citizen at birth, and thus not a natural-born citizen.
You tried to pass off deceit as History. You know that the parents, according to the birther argument, need to be U.S. citizens at the time of the birth of the child, yet you tried to twist that into something to play your axelfraud games. You liberal scum are disgusting, and most disgusting when you try to lie your way along, claiming to be conservative. I’m just pulling your cloak of deception off, asshat, exposing you for the lying agitprop you are. If you really wanted to know more on the arguments both ways, you would read the numerous threads discussing the issues. But that isn’t your agenda. You are a liar at heart, an enemy of conervatism workign FR to cause as much confusion as you can muster.
No, my definitions really aren’t. But in the off chance I am wrong, please provide me proof of it instead of merely saying so. Here’s my proof for what I am claiming:
In the absence of clear language in the constitutional text itself or any mention in historical texts contemporaneous with the drafting of the document (e.g. Madison’s notes on the Convention) you refer to commonly held definitional sources like Black’s Law Dictionary which typically adopt the common law definition:
Natural born citizen- Black’s Law Dictionary defines it as “Persons who are born within the jurisdiction of a national government”
Native born citizen- Black’s Law Dictionay defines it as “Born within the territorial jurisdiction of a country; Born of parents who convey rights of citizenship to their offspring, regardless of the place of birth.”
Seems quite clear to me that Natural requires only birth within the jurisdiction (US birth) while Native born requires birth to US citizens
There’s hope for you yet! All is not lost!
“...neither am I eligible to be President because of the natural born citizenship clause (my mother was born in Canada).”
Your mother’s birthplace matters not. It’s a question of her citizenship at the time of your birth, coupled with the place of Your birth.
If your mother was a US citizen when she gave birth to you in the US than you are eligible. (I’m assuming that pop was a US citizen,)
Children of naturalized US citizens, born in the US are constitutionally eligible to become the President.
Sir, I am not a liberal (except perhaps in the classical sense as an adherent to the philosohpies of men like Locke)nor have I ever been.
Again, all I did was cite history and you have yet to even try to refute it. I don’t mind being proven wrong if indeed what I have read and interpreted is wrong. Instead you throw names about and insult me when all I have done is point out that I believe requiring American citizenship was not intended by the natural born provision and if you look at the presidents I’ve cited that seems to have been the case historically.
“I’m just pulling your cloak of deception off, asshat, exposing you for the lying agitprop you are.”-— I thought I had to have intent to lie to be under a “cloak of deception”... I honestly just see holes in your view of the issue and have presented why I think they are there. I don’t get why you are so hostile about it and somehow make the leap that I am a “asshat” hiding in some “cloak of deception” simply because I disagree with you on one issue. I have provided support for my argument- citing history and dictionary definitions- where is your support AT ALL?
“But that isn’t your agenda.”- Despite what you may think, I don’t have an agenda. Just believe your intepretation of this provision of the Constitution is wrong.
“You are a liar at heart, an enemy of conervatism workign FR to cause as much confusion as you can muster.”-— that’s certainly news to me. I don’t see how citing history and definitions is intended to cause confusion. If anything you are the one causing confusion as, unlike me, you have seemingly refused to cite to anything specific to support your claims.
The Supreme Court defined natural-born citizen as all persons born in the country to parents who were its citizens. Black’s Law Dictionary isn’t controlling here.
“No, I have it right:”
NOT even close!
Which cases are you referring to? Vivian Daniel’s concurrence in Dred Scott? Fuller’s dissent in Wong Kim Ark? Neither is controlling law and both are only sources of dicta. They, like Black’s have only persuasive authority (if any). To the best of my knowledge there are no cases directly on point and those two only tangentially address the issue and have no force of law. Black’s is at least based on common law definitions which have been adopted across courts in Anglo-American legal history for defining those terms. I’m not saying SCOTUS won’t at some point possibly say that the clause does require both birth in the US and US citizen parents but the current law is open to interpretation at best. You can’t definitively say one way or the other what the term “natural born citizen” means by merely referring to currently existing SCOTUS case law.
And you still have yet to prove that I was wrong in anything I wrote... if it was clearly as misguided as you claim you’d be poking holes through it with actual facts. Here we are multiple posts later and still no holes being poked by you.
And again as I have said to everyone attacking me- your support for how “wrong” I am is...?
Also, the text in Minor v. Happersett that states “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. 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. It is sufficient for everything we have now to consider that all children born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction are themselves citizens. The words ‘all children’ are certainly as comprehensive, when used in this connection, as ‘all persons,’ and if females are included in the last they must be in the first. That they are included in the last is not denied. In fact the whole argument of the plaintiffs proceeds upon that idea”
is also dictum and as such has no real weight behind it.
Agreed.
People are using this non-issue as a way to paint Rubio in a “bad light”. It’s failing. Miserably.
The birthers pursuing this tact will only further marginalize themselves and are besmirching a good man and a good conservative.
Plus all that quoted dictum in Minor says is that it is clear that at least someone who was born in the US and has 2 citizen parents is a natural born citizen- something I don’t think anyone is arguing against. It’s where one of those elements is missing that is at issue. And all the court said about it (if you even assume what they said has ANY weight)is “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.” Of course there have been doubts- otherwise the arguments over this issue would not continue. It doesn’t say conclusively, however, one way or the other that they are not natural born. The dicta merely says those who have both are without a doubt natural born.
“I strongly suggest you read the whole article written by Leo Donofrio to get a better idea about what is happening on this issue.”
Does it not dawn on you that lawyers who face-plant in court every single time might not be your best source of legal analysis?
“your support for how “wrong” I am is...?”
I didn’t write as you quote “wrong”
I replied to your “No, I am right.” saying “Not even close.”
You may wish to review the terms jus soli, and jus sanquines, each taken alone, and in combination.
Jus Soli is of the soil; you are born there. Jus Sanguinis is of the blood; you have a blood line. Exactly as I said.
“Natural Born Citizen and Native Born Citizen are two different things.”
Neither one exists. “natural born” was a description, not a title.
“someone who was born in the US and has 2 citizen parents is a natural born citizen”
Yes? Notice that is a NATURAL born citizen....as required! BORN IN THE US AND HAS 2 CITIZEN PARENTS! NATURAL born....not “native” born as you tried to say was the requirement.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.