Article II - The Executive Branch, Section 1
No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
How does the Constitution define citizenship?
The 14th Amendment defines citizenship this way: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."
For those of you in Rio Linda, that means that persons born in the United States are “natural born” citizens vs. those not born in the United States that have to be “naturalized”. Note, that means there are ONLY two types of citizens; those born in the US and those not born in the US who obtain citizenship after birth. Ergo, those born in the United States are natural born citizens.
Nowhere are ANY US born citizens required to be prove themselves and deemed to more “natural” than “natural” by proving that at the time of their birth, one of both of their biological parents, were US citizens. Nada, nill, zip, zero.
Where some “birthers” and people from Rio Linda get themselves all confused is when a person is born outside of the US to one or more parent who are US citizens and whether or not that person is considered a citizen of the United States at birth, i.e. “natural born”.
Currently Title 8 Section 1401 of the US Codes states the following are citizens of the United States at birth:
•Anyone born inside the United States *
•Any Indian or Eskimo born in the United States, provided being a citizen of the U.S. does not impair the person's status as a citizen of the tribe
•Any one born outside the United States, both of whose parents are citizens of the U.S., as long as one parent has lived in the U.S.
•Any one born outside the United States, if one parent is a citizen and lived in the U.S. for at least one year and the other parent is a U.S. national
•Any one born in a U.S. possession, if one parent is a citizen and lived in the U.S. for at least one year
•Any one found in the U.S. under the age of five, whose parentage cannot be determined, as long as proof of non-citizenship is not provided by age 21
•Any one born outside the United States, if one parent is an alien and as long as the other parent is a citizen of the U.S. who lived in the U.S. for at least five years (with military and diplomatic service included in this time)
•A final, historical condition: a person born before 5/24/1934 of an alien father and a U.S. citizen mother who has lived in the U.S.
* There is an exception in the law — the person must be "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States. This would exempt the child of a diplomat, for example, from this provision.
Anyone falling into these categories is considered natural-born, and is eligible to run for President or Vice President. These provisions allow the children of military families to be considered natural-born, for example.
http://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_citi.html
The underlined and * being important in that it deems that the children born outside of the US or in a US possession to US citizen diplomats, US citizen military personnel or to an expat American citizen or citizens working or living abroad are deemed to have been born in the US provided that, and only that they meet the stated conditions.
The first in bold is self evident. Persons born in the US are deemed citizens at birth, i.e. “natural born” citizens.
BTW, some say that Santorum isn’t eligible either because his father wasn’t a citizen at the time of his birth. Then there is this post:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2859724/posts?page=90#90 And this
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2859724/posts?page=92#92
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.
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."
The reason the 14th amendment does not apply to your argument is because of the clause I have underlined.
i.e. If a child is born to vacationing folks from Bulgaria while staying in an American hotel......that infant is not considered a "Citizen" because he (or his parents) are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. They are still subject to the jurisdiction of Bulgaria and are not considered citizens.
For this same reason.... children born in the U.S. of Diplomat parents are also not considered citizens. They are not subject to U.S. jurisdiction.
I'm surprised people still try to use this silly argument about the 14th amendment.