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 ...
So you would have the two sons of the current Muslim President of Egypt who were born in the USA be eligible for POTUSA? I don’t believe that any laws pertaining to allegiance to the USA have changed the intention as to a ‘natural born citizen’ for POTUSA.
Oh, but they were. At the beginning, the only citizens were citizens of the States. Everyone was 'alien' and everyone who wanted to be part of the newly created United States had to follow the same procedure of taking an oath in front of a local magistrate.
Are you saying that the Founders considered themselves aliens in the country they had just created, and that every single non-loyalist resident of the new United States had to take a loyalty oath before they were considered citizens? I'll have to ask for some documentation to support that claim.
...they would have simply made a declaration...
So many birther arguments boil down to this: "if they'd meant X, they would have said Y." But that cuts both ways--if they'd meant that presidential eligibility required two citizen parents, they would have written "No person except a Citizen born in these United States to two Citizen parents..." I won't ask you to explain why they didn't write that; don't ask me to explain why they didn't write some other alternative-history nugget you made up.
No, it was not an answer . It was a total nonsequiter concerning a different type of law and a judge who has no relevance to this discussion.
Okay, try these: (1) perhaps it was because they believed, as other SCOTUS justices have expressed, that comments made by legislators shouldn't be part of their decision; or (2) perhaps they disagreed with your interpretation of what Bingham meant. The fact is, I don't know why their decision went against what you believe a Congressman said he meant--how could I? So that leaves us with what they actually said in the decision.
Again, the 'implications' of particular words in the deliberation or the dissent make no difference. It's the question before the court and the final determination of it that matters.
I agree. Why, then, are you asking me how they could have ignored Bingham?
The fact remains, though, that justices on the WKA court, who heard the arguments and read the decision, thought it meant anyone born here could become president. I trust their assessment more than your assertion that the decision not only didn't say WKA was NBC but actually said he wasn't.
They have allegiance to Egypt, it would seem, due to diplomatic reasons, they are excluded.
BTW, do you see NO responsibility on the part of the VOTERS to prevent such nonsense?
No member of Congress agrees with you.
No Conservative legal foundation agrees with you.
The Landmark Legal Foundation disagrees with you.
Mark Levin disagrees with you.
Jay Sekulow disagrees with you.
Rush Limbaugh disagrees with you.
Shaun Hannity disagrees with you.
Not a single judge in the country agrees with you.
Not a single immigration attorney agrees with you.
(Next, you or some other birther will tell me that I am arguing from authority or popularity or some such drivel, but you KNOW that if any member of Congress lost his or her mind and signed on to your bither BS you would be overjoyed! Their opinions mean nothing to you -— until of course in the unlikely event that someone important does agree with you -— then that person will be important to you, huh?)
Reminds me of a very old joke involves a man being shown a set of inkblots, and interpreting them all as pictures of people having sex. When the tester announces that he's clearly obsessed with sex, he says, "Me? You're the one with the collection of dirty pictures.
You (JW) put words in his (DL) mouth and then interpret them to reveal your own biases.
He (JW) also has that cadence of a lefty.
Truth, truth, falsehood therefore all statements are true.
Obama like Ex.
The Constitution is the law of the land.
It should be adhered to.
Just like the Muslims who were so instrumental in it's construction would ask of us.
Obama and lefties are notorious for this. They use the truths to justify the falsehood.
and you suggest that the 14th Amendment was a BAD THING, what else am I SUPPOSED to think?
He did not suggest that. He said is was badly written and much abused.
I am suggesting that it is badly written and much abused. I would not be in favor of repealing it unless a substitute amendment or set of amendments (it really needs to be divided into more coherent and separate aspects) could be put forth to accomplish it's legitimate objectives.
George Will says the same thing.
An argument to be made about immigrant babies and citizenship
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/26/AR2010032603077.html
A simple reform would drain some scalding steam from immigration arguments that may soon again be at a roiling boil. It would bring the interpretation of the 14th Amendment into conformity with what the authors of its text intended, and with common sense, thereby removing an incentive for illegal immigration.
To end the practice of "birthright citizenship," all that is required is to correct the misinterpretation of that amendment's first sentence: "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." From these words has flowed the practice of conferring citizenship on children born here to illegal immigrants.
A parent from a poor country, writes professor Lino Graglia of the University of Texas law school, "can hardly do more for a child than make him or her an American citizen, entitled to all the advantages of the American welfare state." Therefore, "It is difficult to imagine a more irrational and self-defeating legal system than one which makes unauthorized entry into this country a criminal offense and simultaneously provides perhaps the greatest possible inducement to illegal entry."
Writing in the Texas Review of Law and Politics, Graglia says this irrationality is rooted in a misunderstanding of the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof." What was this intended or understood to mean by those who wrote it in 1866 and ratified it in 1868? The authors and ratifiers could not have intended birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants because in 1868 there were and never had been any illegal immigrants because no law ever had restricted immigration.
If those who wrote and ratified the 14th Amendment had imagined laws restricting immigration -- and had anticipated huge waves of illegal immigration -- is it reasonable to presume they would have wanted to provide the reward of citizenship to the children of the violators of those laws? Surely not.
The Civil Rights Act of 1866 begins with language from which the 14th Amendment's citizenship clause is derived: "All persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States." (Emphasis added.) The explicit exclusion of Indians from birthright citizenship was not repeated in the 14th Amendment because it was considered unnecessary. Although Indians were at least partially subject to U.S. jurisdiction, they owed allegiance to their tribes, not the United States. This reasoning -- divided allegiance -- applies equally to exclude the children of resident aliens, legal as well as illegal, from birthright citizenship. Indeed, today's regulations issued by the departments of Homeland Security and Justice stipulate:
Scab pickers.
“Yes, it’s really too bad that people are so dumbed-down that they can’t see that the Founders made a distinction between the President and Senators and House members when it came to qualifications. I have YET to see anyone explain the difference.”
[I have been involved in these discussions since July 2008. Here is some information I hope you’ll find useful. I suggest you copy and keep a file. Most of all, don’t let the trolls discourage you. Their intentions are to destroy our Constitution - we can’t allow that to happen!]
Three types of citizenship are recognized by our government: native born; naturalized; and citizen-by-statute (derived citizenship from parents). All have equal rights. All can serve in Congress, either as a Representative in the House, or as a Senator in the Senate.
The following link will take you to the government’s own Immigration Service web page describing the three types of citizenship.
Natural born Citizen is NOT a type of statutory citizenship.
Natural born is ONLY an eligibility requirement for the U.S. Presidency per Article II, Section 1, clause 5, of the U.S. Constitution, and requires, as per the Founders, the President to be born in the United States (jus solis) AND of two citizen parents (jus sanguinas).
The definition of natural born Citizen appears in the holding of SCOTUS’s unanimous decision of Minor v. Happersett (1874).
Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1875), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the Constitution did not grant women the right to vote.
The Minor v. Happersett ruling was based on an interpretation of the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court readily accepted that Minor was a citizen of the United States, but it held that the constitutionally protected privileges of citizenship did not include the right to vote.
SCOTUS rejected Minor’s argument that she was a citizen under the 14th Amendment of the U.S.Constitution, and examined her eligibility, concluding that she belonged to the class of citizens who, being born in the U.S. of citizen parents, was a natural born Citizen, and not covered by the 14th Amendment. This holding has been used in 25 consequent SCOTUS decisions since 1875.
The eligibility requirement of Natural Born Citizenship (jus solis + jus sanguinas: born in the U.S. of U.S. citizen parents) must be viewed as a means to prevent split allegiance for any President of the United States.
*************************************************************************
[There are many on Free Republic who insist the above was only ‘dicta’. They’re wrong according to SCOTUS.]
In 1996, the US Supreme Court’s majority opinion by Justice Breyer in Ogilvie Et Al., Minors v. United States, 519 U.S. 79 (1996), stated that when the Court discusses a certain reason as an independent ground in support of their decision, then that reason is not simply dictum.
“Although we gave other reasons for our holding in Schleier as well, we explicitly labeled this reason an ‘independent’ ground in support of our decision, id., at 334. We cannot accept petitioner’s claim that it was simply a dictum.”
The Minor Court’s construction of Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5, of the United States Constitution was the independent ground by which the Court avoided construing the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause.
Therefore, such construction is precedent, not dicta, despite POTUS eligibility not being an issue. The Court determined it was necessary to define the class of natural-born citizens, and the definition is current legal precedent.
The above is from Leo Donofrio’s online site.
http://naturalborncitizen.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/minor-v-happersett-revisited-2/
I hope this helps you. Truth is the daughter of time.
“Many thanks to you for getting in touch with the Michigan law review editor!”
Um...actually it was Leo Donofrio, not me, who contacted the editor. Everything in my comment you were replying to below the link that I provided to for Leo’s Natural Born Citizen blog is from his blog. Sorry the link didn’t post live. It is a fabulous blog on the NBC issue which went dark a long time after Donofrio gave up on the legal system.
I just did
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So many birther arguments boil down to this: "if they'd meant X, they would have said Y."
Which does nothing to refute the contention that if they possessed the power of determining natural-born citizenship, they WOULD have done so.
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Okay, try these: (1) perhaps it was because they believed, as other SCOTUS justices have expressed, that comments made by legislators shouldn't be part of their decision; or (2) perhaps they disagreed with your interpretation of what Bingham meant.
Okay, so the intent of something isn't important [like the intent of the 14th Amendment] unless you say it is[like how the intent of Wong Kim Ark is more important that the decision].
LOL! Double standard, anyone?
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I trust their assessment more than your assertion that the decision not only didn't say WKA was NBC but actually said he wasn't.
Which is perfectly within your right. Just remember one thing, though.
When you natural right to self defense is abridged...... when the government redefines the meaning of marriage..... When government decides its 'vested interest' in your children overrides your parental right TO them and that IT gets to determine how much of the money you earn that YOU get too keep.....
Think back on the time someone tried to tell you the Founders never intended to give any branch of government a carte blanche to define the term 'citizen'.
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“...there was no such thing as citizen of the United States, except as that condition arose from citizenship of some state
United States v. Anthony, 24 Fed. Cas. 829, (Case No. 14,459)(1873)
“There is a difference between privileges and immunities belonging to the citizens of the United States as such, and those belonging to the citizens of each state as such”.
Ruhstrat v. People, 57 N.E. 41 (1900)
“The rights and privileges, and immunities which the fourteenth constitutional amendment and Rev. St. section 1979 [U.S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 1262], for its enforcement, were designated to protect, are such as belonging to citizens of the United States as such, and not as citizens of a state”.
Wadleigh v. Newhall 136 F. 941 (1905)
“There are, then, under our republican form of government, two classes of citizens, one of the United States and one of the state”.
Gardina v. Board of Registrars of Jefferson County, 160 Ala. 155; 48 So. 788 (1909)
The appellant purports to accept as sound the position stated as the view of all the justices concurring in the Hague decision. This position is that the privileges and immunities clause protects all citizens against abridgement by states of rights of national citizenship as distinct from the fundamental or natural rights inherent in state citizenship.
Madden v. Kentucky , 309 U.S. 83: 84 L.Ed. 590 (1940)
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The Natural Law is where our inalienable rights are!
BTW - When was the last time you were asked anything OTHER than 'are you a US citizen'?
Here is a live link to Leo Donofrio’s “Natural Born Citizen” blog:
http://naturalborncitizen.wordpress.com/
Many thanks for that link!
Sorry for the mixup
lol
You did not notice that I never referenced that the SC take action for ‘resolution and correction’. My view is that the Constitution by intent and words is above any government body including the SC. Where we have difference of understanding ,apparently, is that I believe there can be fraud, chicanery, and deception by persons and group of persons as to any election. I remember very well the poster on my fourth grade room wall which gave that famous quote attributed to Lincoln about the fallibility of people and government i.e. ‘You can fool some of the people all the time and all the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time’. There is no need to belabor the power of the SC because my issue is that ,using your numbers, 130 million people can indeed be induced to to cast votes in the frame of reference noted.
“While I think Ted Cruz, born in Canada, is eligible to be President, I don’t believe Obama would be eligible if he had been born in Kenya.”
Did you see my vanity on the 9th Circus Marguet-Pillado case? Obot activist lawyers in CA set up the 9th Circus to declare in dicta that any child born outside the US with a mere biological relationship to a US citizen is an NBC...and this dicta came down right in the middle of Judge Carter’s 2009 case in which an affidavit was filed that included a BC that was claimed to have been obtained in Kenya supposedly with Barry’s little footprint on it. Interesting timing, wasn’t that?
As it turned out, Judge Carter wrote that even if Kenyan authorities authenticated the Kenyan BC (which they refused to do) he would have to give deference to a claimed HI COLB, if that could be authenticated.
Very good post. Very simple eloquence too. Nice job.
“Surprisingly, Donofrio’s criticism here has some merit.
“I wouldn’t exactly call it “scrubbing,” though. I would call it a correction. And I think Solum explained himself well enough, although I would go farther than his footnote.”
It is surprising to you because you, apparently, are not familiar with Donofrio’s body of work.
Solum’s original article was peer reviewed.
Solum’s “correction” was NOT. Solum’s political motivation to attempt to “correct” his article is obvious.
We can talk again about this nonsense when the future discloses how and why 50%+or- of the voters used their responsibility to elect Obama. The sons of the Egyptian President were BORN in the USA and the parents were not on any diplomatic/government business. My take is that if they do not denounce their right of birthplace they retain citizenship. I would hope they would do such but who knows what goes with the growth of Islam in the USA.
I just did
No you didn't! You quoted the Naturalization Act and offered some alternative history scenario, but you haven't offered any documentation that every existing resident of the fledgling US had to appear in court to make an "oath or affirmation" of loyalty in order to be considered citizens. There should be some historical record of that process if it actually happened.
Okay, so the intent of something isn't important [like the intent of the 14th Amendment] unless you say it is[like how the intent of Wong Kim Ark is more important that the decision].
I didn't say anything about the intent of WKA, only its effects. I don't pretend to be a mindreader (which is why I stay away from confident assertions about what other people "would have done").
“I understand that US law at the time required that a parent have resided in the US for 5 years after the age of 14 in order for his or her child born abroad to be automatically a US citizen. Stanley Ann Dunham was about 3 months short of 19 when Obama was born. If that is the case, then no, Obama if born in Kenya would NOT be eligible to be President.”
The “5 years after the age of 14” only applies if the parents are married. Any US residence at all and any age of the mother will entitle the baby of a single US citizen mother delivered in a foreign country to have US nationality at birth, IIRC. That wouldn’t meet the Minor v. Happersett NBC standard or even the jus soli standard, of course, but it would meet the Marguet-Pillado dicta standard (which was cited I the Congressional Research Office paper on NBC status, BTW).
My reading of Kenya colonial marriage act and Hawaii marriage law in 1961 points to Stanley Ann’s marriage to BHO Sr. as being bigamous in both Kenya and Hawaii due to a tribal (not Muslim) marriage to Kezia.
A place where the Kandahunas run free?
Where is this magical place where they protect the little Kandahunas? I’ve heard of it before but didn’t dare to dream it was a real place.
Oh wait, nevermind. You said Kannaduh not Kandahuna.
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