Posted on 03/26/2013 7:02:12 PM PDT by Cold Case Posse Supporter
42-year-old Cruz was born in Calgary, Alberta, to an American mother and a Cuban father. By dint of his mother’s citizenship, Cruz was an American citizen at birth. Whether he meets the Constitution’s requirement that the president of the United States be a “natural-born citizen,” a term the Framers didn’t define and for which the nation’s courts have yet to offer an interpretation, has become the subject of considerable speculation.
Snip~
Legal scholars are firm about Cruz’s eligibility. “Of course he’s eligible,” Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz tells National Review Online. “He’s a natural-born, not a naturalized, citizen.” Eugene Volokh, a professor at the UCLA School of Law and longtime friend of Cruz, agrees, saying the senator was “a citizen at birth, and thus a natural-born citizen — as opposed to a naturalized citizen, which I understand to mean someone who becomes a citizen after birth.”
Federal law extends citizenship beyond those granted it by the 14th Amendment: It confers the privilege on all those born outside of the United States whose parents are both citizens, provided one of them has been “physically present” in the United States for any period of time, as well as all those born outside of the United States to at least one citizen parent who, after the age of 14, has resided in the United States for at least five years. Cruz’s mother, who was born and raised in Delaware, meets the latter requirement, so Cruz himself is undoubtedly an American citizen. No court has ruled what makes a “natural-born citizen,” but there appears to be a consensus that the term refers to those who gain American citizenship by birth rather than by naturalization
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
Having kept up with the debate here on Free Republic, I strongly disagree.
He certainly didn't do as good a job of explaining it as he might have done.
However, if we look a bit closer at what he wrote, I think we can see at least some of where he was coming from.
...he who was subsequently born a citizen of a state, became at the moment of his birth a citizen of the United States. Therefore every person born within the United States, its territories or districts, whether the parents are citizens or aliens, is a natural born citizen in the sense of the Constitution, and entitled to all the rights and privileges appertaining to that capacity.
His use of the word "therefore" is a link to what he had just said.
Every citizen of a state was also a citizen of the United States. So if you were born a citizen of a State, then you were born a citizen of the United States.
Not one single State of the Union had ever introduced any prohibition, before the Constitution or after, against the children of non-citizens born on their soil being born citizens. New York adopted a law against the children of TRANSIENT aliens being born citizens in their state in (I think) 1859, but that was long after Rawle wrote.
It seems clear, then, that Rawle regarded "born a citizen of the United States" as being pretty much synonymous with "natural born citizen of the United States."
In this he is not REMOTELY alone. Generally speaking, in the early United States, there were two expressions of what "natural born citizen" or Presidential eligibility meant. One (I personally think) was more accurate, and one a bit less accurate.
Many people said you needed to be "born in the United States." (Variation: "Born a citizen in the United States.") I would argue that that view was the less accurate one, because it didn't allow for the case of children born abroad of US citizen parents.
Everyone else said that being a "natural born citizen" or being eligible to be President meant that you were born a citizen. And that, I think, is the more accurate expression.
So it must have been considered axiomatic in Rawle's day that if you were born a citizen, you were a natural born citizen.
Earlier, I also gave you eight reasons why Rawle's understanding of "natural born citizen" was the standard and accurate understanding. It could be of value to think through that list in depth.
The proposition that any court today might even hear documented evidence/testimony that would make Obama ineligible just doesn’t seem feasible as of today but perhaps there will be a change. That Cruz who had a Cuban citizen father and albeit a USA citizen mother both of whom lived and worked four years in Canada for a non-USA company without any known/publicized record of acting in any way on the part of the USA and during which time Cruz was born should certainly be cause to avoid another Obama Constitutional eligibility fiasco.
Why do some arguments on the issue of eligibility ignore the fact that the Constitution speaks about “citizens’ and ‘natural born’ citizens in two different and distinct parts of the Constitution? Also, why is the issue of the parents citizenship/allegiance so often left out of the debate?
Yeah. Like saying he was a citizen on the United States really meant he was a natural born citizen.
I tell you what - we'll continue with the pointless argument over the dissent when you make some reasonable attempt to answer the questions posited to you in post #281.
That was great. Appreciate it.
Many thanks for the ping!
Many thanks to you for getting in touch with the Michigan law review editor!
This is what I like to see, Freepers going out and checking things, asking questions, and doing investigative and analytical work.
Kudos to you :)
“That word [”natural”] means the opposite of “NATURALIZED”
Sorry, but the opposite of naturalized is denaturalized or to strip someone of their citizenship.
Considering it starts with: Considering the circumstances surrounding the framing of the Constitution
Another attempt at a then-means-the-same-as-now analogy like you pointed out previously with Rawle, perhaps?
FOR THE THIRD TIME......cite the specific authority on which Rawle relied his personal opinion as to what a “natural born Citizen” is.
Wrong question, so you got the wrong answer.
What are the two forms of citizenship in the United States?
1.) Natural Born
2.) Naturalized
Therefore, they two are opposites.
By the way, it is not by accident that the words:
Ignorance
and
IGNORE
Are so similar. You ignore the fact that you have no popular support. You ignore the fact that you have no political support. You ignore the fact that you have no historical support. You ignore the fact that you have no legal authority on your side, whatsoever.
Instead, you claim the support of people, long dead, who are not here to defend themselves from being associated with your crack-pot nonsense, or you claim the support of people who were notably refuted at the time of any quotes you post.
Opinions matter. It is a FACT that legal opinion has never been on your side. It is not some grand conspiracy, you NEVER had any substantial legal support, in the history of the USA, for your views.
So, Jeff, you are in the camp of those who believe the off-spring of two illegal aliens born in the US is a natural born Citizen? OK, then!
This is certainly a popular pov, based on popular interpretation of a long string of administrative rulings and case law. However Jeff, it is just another popular opinion, no more or less valid than any other. See, if your paycheck is not issued by the SCOTUS, neither are the "rulings" you issue.
IMNVHO, the appropriate role of FReepers, such as you and I, is not to try and convince each other of our opinions on this most vexing issue, but to urge the SCOTUS to take up one of the many appeals on Constitutional Eligibility that come before it, instead of, as they have more or less cheerfully admitted, ducking the issue.
If one of the Supremes should call me for my opinion (which is just as good as any other on FReep or the Elks' Bar, it is this:
In the Constitution, a quaint document written in long hand on parchment by among others, slave-owning white men, and by which this Republic was founded and that purports to be the written rules of our game to this very day, the words "natural," and "born," are not capitalized, although "Citizen" is. That means that a natural born Citizen is just another kind of Citizen, the only kind of Citizen eligible to run for and serve as the President of the United States. Not better. Not worse. Just different.
It is time for the SCOTUS to step in. If they start today, it will not affect Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. or II, because by the time they reach their dénoument, he (and Reggie) will be long gone. OTOH, if they futz about much longer, one or two of the more reasonable justices will die, or go goo-goo, allowing the Executive Branch to go out and find more socialist stooges of ambiguous sexuality to "stack" the SCOTUS in favor of rule by an alien of that ilk.
Many disagree with me. NEWSFLASH! That's WTF COURTS are for. Make the Black-Robed SOBs earn their extravagant pay and privileges.
I for one do not deny that those born of two citizen parents, on US Soil, are Natural Born Citizens.
However, that is not the sole, exclusive route to NBC status.
This is where you birthers fail. Since NBC can be achieved several different ways, to state the most incontestable method by which in may be obtained is rational and logical and does not exclude those born on US soil to less than two citizen parents, and it does not exclude those born on foreign soil to one or two citizen parents.
Natural Born Citizen means Citizen at the moment of birth and nothing else.
The citizenship of the parents only really matters if the child is born on foreign soil. In those cases, the laws have changed several times over the years, and it would depend on the laws on the books at the time of the birth.
Again, speaking for myself, I believe that Congress can take care of the “anchor baby” problem by pointing out that children of illegal aliens are not fully “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” as child custody and divorce court proceedings probably would have to take place in their home country, in the event of any dispute.
Kansas, WTF are you and Toto drinkin'? Congress would NEVAH touch your anchor baby with a 10' Pole .... or Norwegian for that matter.
What exactly is a Citizen? Time for a ruling from on high!
Kansas Senator Jerry Moran has introduced legislation to declare that anchor babies are not really covered by the 14th Amendment, since they are not fully under the jurisdiction of US Courts/
Only TWO U.S. Citizen parents guarantees sole allegiance to the United States. That is why the framers introduced the natural born Citizen clause for the presidency.
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