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Divided loyalty?

A child is born in the USA to citizen parents. At 6 months of age, they move to Italy. Both parents renounce their US citizenship and become Italians. The child is raised as an Italian.

At 21, the child claims dual citizenship.

At 45, the child moves to the USA. 14 years later, at 59, he wants to run for President.

Can he?

He is a natural born citizen who has never renounced US citizenship. He has lived 44.5 years out of 59 in Italy, He is also an Italian citizen. He grew up speaking Italian.

Does the US Constitution bar him from running? If so, what in the US Constitution prevents him from running?

“”The facts were these: one Steinkauler, a Prussian subject by birth, emigrated to the United States in 1848, was naturalized in 1854, and in the following year had a son who was born in St. Louis. Four years later, Steinkauler returned to Germany, taking this child, and became domiciled at Weisbaden, where they continuously resided. When the son reached the age of twenty years, the German Government called upon him to report for military duty, and his father then invoked the intervention of the American Legation on the ground that his son was a native citizen of the United States. To an inquiry by our Minister, the father declined to give an assurance that the son would return to this country within a reasonable time. On reviewing the pertinent points in the case, including the Naturalization Treaty of 1868 with North Germany, 15 Stat. 615, the Attorney General reached the following conclusion:

“Young Steinkauler is a native-born American citizen. There is no law of the United States under which his father or any other person can deprive him of his birthright. He can return to America at the age of twenty-one, and in due time, if the people elect, he can become President of the United States; but the father, in accordance with the treaty and the laws, has renounced his American citizenship and his American allegiance and has acquired for himself and his son German citizenship and the rights which it carries and he must take the burdens as well as the advantages. The son being domiciled with the father and subject to him under the law during his minority, and receiving the German protection where he has acquired nationality and declining to give any assurance of ever returning to the United States and claiming his American nationality by residence here, I am of the opinion that he cannot rightly invoke the aid of the Government of the United States to relieve him from military duty in Germany during his minority. But I am of opinion that, when he reaches the age of twenty-one years, he can then elect whether he will return and take the nationality of his birth with its duties and privileges, or retain the nationality acquired by the act of his father. This seems to me to be ‘right reason,’ and I think it is law.”

— From Perkins v Elg.

I see from this post that you miss the point of divided loyalty totally but honestly. In your post re: England I imagined you might comprehend the issue yet choose to gloss over it in order to make your point. Now I see that you sincerely have no clue. Again I am shaking my head. How can this be? If you don’t grasp the issue, there is no way you can successfully argue against it, that’s for sure.

Reminds me of the days during the first phase of my conversion from far left liberal activist to movement conservative. I used to listen to ‘Bill’ Clinton characterize conservatives, and nascent though I was, I was perplexed and very annoyed. ‘Why is he lying about us?’ I wondered.

I later learned he wasn’t lying—at least not on those occasions when he [mis]characterized conservatives and our positions. He genuinely had no idea who we are or what we believe. His ‘mischaracterizations’ represented his best take on us. From the moment I grasped that, I understood why so few liberals convert. They haven’t the foggiest idea what true conservatism/conservatives are all about, and from that starting point their errors only compound.

This discussion w you, Mr Rogers, has similarly opened my eyes/mind. I had previously assumed that at least the more astute soil-only advocates grasped, if nothing else, the main gist of the divided loyalty issue; they simply chose to subordinate it to their soil only beliefs. You’ve revealed they have no earthly idea what divided loyalty really means or why it matters.

Wow. A seismic shift in my understanding of the soil only proponents is, even as I type, underway. This is definitely going to require a bit of thought.

[This is no knock on you, btw, Mr Rogers. When liberals can’t understand something, ninety percent of the time it goes to their ideology. When a conservative can’t understand something along the lines of divided loyalty, it’s just baffling. That’s why I need to think about it. But if you feel you need to lash out or snark, by all means go for the gold. If snark makes you feel better, what’s the harm?]