Posted on 05/04/2012 7:25:23 AM PDT by Menehune56
Those conservatives who argue against "birthright citizenship" have just been thrown under the same bus as the "birthers" -- whether or not they like it, or the GOP admits it.
The mainstream media, longtime foes against reform of the anchor baby practice, have been happy to help. And instead of quietly watching while a sizeable portion of the Republican party is run over, as in the case of the "birthers," we now have the GOP establishment lending the media a hand in brushing aside many immigration reform advocates -- by pushing the selection of Senator Marco Rubio for the VP nomination.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
in before the birther mob...
The Heritage Guide to the Constitution
The governing phrase from Art. II, Sec. 1 of the Constitution.
Do you have to be born within the territorial limits of the United States to be such a citizen?
No, said the Founders.
The Heritage Foundation’s Guide shows how the First Congress in 1790 provided that “the children of citizens of the United States that may be born beyond the sea or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born.” This was our first naturalization statute (1 Stat. 104).
Now, consider Marco Rubio. His parents were resident aliens when he was born in 1971, seeking and soon to receive their status as naturalized U.S. citizens.
Under the Fourteenth Amendment, “all persons born...in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the states wherein they reside.”
This “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” clause shows why Rubio is — and, very likely, why children of illegal aliens are not — a “natural born citizen of the United States.”
“To say that Rubio, Jindal, and Haley are forever barred because of a strained interpretation of the Constitution’s eligibility clause would condemn conservatism to minority status for the foreseeable future. Surely, that is not what we want.”
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/07/the_good_news_rubios_eligible.html
Much ado about nothing.
WEASEL WORD WARNING!
"soon to receive" didn't happen before Marco was born. More explicit: his parents WERE NOT CITIZENS when he was born. Ergo, HE IS NOT a natural-born citizen, and NOT ELIGIBLE. I will not vote for any such candidate, and neither will millions of others.
Republicans who seek to subvert the plain meaning of "natural born citizen" in the Constitution just show their contempt for the document. This is why the country is in the shape it's in: the elites in BOTH major parties despise the Constitution, and only use it, Alinsky-style, when it suits their ends.
A pox on you all.
I am so sick of the “tortured wording that tries to eliminate the simple words “natural born citizen” from “citizen” and “naturalized citizen”.
Read those sentences. It is a worse description than the meaning of the word “IS” from the past!
The thought does not follow but the words try to make them the same.
Read the history of attempts to change the wording. Those members of congress knew what it meant and wanted to change it!
NOT ELLIGIBLE...and I am from Fl and like Marco Rubio!
Thanks for your words of clarity.
..weasel words..
I will be using that!
Marco Rubio is far from an “anchor baby”. His parents were here legally. He was born a U.S. citizen to legal residents who soon became naturalized citizens.
Marco Rubio is not a naturalized citizen - he was born a citizen according to U.S. law - which should always reflect our best understanding of natural law.
Natural law is not what was written hundreds of years ago by one man in one book. Those that think it is have little concept of the foundational philosophy of this Republic.
If you want to change the constitution in regards to this .. fine. But everyone already born a citizen would remain so... only future children born in the US to non-citizens would be affected.
Rubio is a citizen and always will be, period.
This is an issue that needs to be addressed ASAP, not allowed to fester until it explodes just before the elections.
sigh, it is NOT ABOUT CITIZENSHIP, it is about what the Founders meant by “natural born citizen.”
Rubio is a native born citizen and always will be. He is not a natural born citizen. He and Bobby Jindal are not eligible to be VP or President. The 14th Ammendment was not about Natural Born.
...and that’s why this board is quickly dying
‘American Thinker’ is now a subversive site?
When did the lunatics take over this asylum?
That said, EVERY DAY that the usurper currently occupying the Oval Office is allowed to continue unchallenged weakens the Natural Born provision of The Constitution. I could certainly see a scenario that if he were seriously challenged in court, the court might support him based on the fact that he has been allowed to continue for so long without so much as a peep from congress or the judicial branch.
0bama has set a precedence, and certainly if any similar questions arise in the future, whether with Rubio or anyone else, challenges will be even less effective than they are now and go absolutely nowhere. They will say "we settled that issue back with 0bama". If congress and the courts continue to dodge the issue, that provision of The Constitution is effectively dead.
No one disagrees with you.
Look at your words...Citizen is not what is in question.
Can you honestly say he will have only the good of the US as his lifetime direction. That was the meaning of the Natural Born Clause...IMHO
Nice, clear explanation.
Thanks for adding that to this conversation.
I can not even get some family members to understand they are being fooled with language.
And I’m equally sick of hearing about this totally useless distraction.
It’s time wasted on nonsense when we should be doing what it best for the country as a whole. That is stopping the runaway downward trend into has-been status. America and Americans deserve better.
Any court, and all 50 states, will say Rubio is eligible, per the Constitution. No birther will ever agree.
"It thus clearly appears that, by the law of England for the last three centuries, beginning before the settlement of this country and continuing to the present day, aliens, while residing in the dominions possessed by the Crown of England, were within the allegiance, the obedience, the faith or loyalty, the protection, the power, the jurisdiction of the English Sovereign, and therefore every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign State or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born.
III. The same rule was in force in all the English Colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established."
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0169_0649_ZO.html
It is not an interpretation, it is a fact arising from the fundamental definition of natural law as practiced for thousands of years. It is not “strained” in anyway whatsoever, because being a natural born citizen has been a practice among many nations for many centuries. The Fourteenth Amendment says nothing whatsoever about the definition of a natural born citizen, because it only refers to persons acquiring statutory citizenship, meaning a statute was required to confer citizenship rather than citizenship being the natural consequence of being born the child of native born parents who constitute the body of the nation’s citizenry.
The only problem with your quote is the simple difference between US Citizens and British Subjects. Citizens verses Subjects.
Here’s the deal. I am planning on holding my nose while I vote against Obama come November. But if presumptive-nominee Romney picks Rubio I think I’ll just sit it out. Oh, I’ll vote, just skip the presidential line.
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