Both McCain's parents were citizens, his dad from Iowa and his mom from Oklahoma. They were living in Panama on assignment from the US military. To declare the children of career military ineligible for US citizenship is madness.
INA: ACT 320 - Children born outside the United States and residing permanently in the United States; conditions under which citizenship automatically acquired 1/
Sec. 320. [8 U.S.C. 1431] (a) A child born outside of the United States automatically becomes a citizen of the United States when all of the following conditions have been fulfilled:
(1) At least one parent of the child is a citizen of the United States, whether by birth or naturalization.
(2) The child is under the age of eighteen years.
(3) The child is residing in the United States in the legal and physical custody of the citizen parent pursuant to a lawful admission for permanent residence.
(b) Subsection (a) shall apply to a child adopted by a United States citizen parent if the child satisfies the requirements applicable to adopted children under section 101(b)(1) .
“To declare the children of career military ineligible for US citizenship is madness.” The Canal Zone is American soil.
Those attacking the principle of natural born citizenship don’t care how their goal is accomplished so long as they get it. They have gotten a foreigner on one side, now all they have to do is do the same thing for republicans, and they would have gotten exactly what they want. An America, governed not by Americans, but by foreigners. Foreigners, who with the complicity of allies here who would promptly sign over American citizenship to others.
This is WHY the fathers of the United States explicitly included this principle. They had just freed the United States from governance overseas. They did not want to see America capitulated under said governance once more.
Xsins, you are confused, and according our framers and justices less respect than they deserve. Words have meaning. You have spent many sentences reciting U.S.C. - U.S. Code - when the definition of natural born citizen is not found anywhere in U.S. Code. There are two classes of citizen, natural born and naturalized. U.S. Code only deals with naturalization, having its justification in Article 1 Section 8, and the first federal definition for who were citizens in the 14th Amendment, 1867.
I won’t repeat from my earlier note, the words of two chief justices and the author of the naturalization amendment, John Bingham. I don’t know why you insist, but we have original sources, including John Jay’s note to change Madison’s requirement for presidential eligibility from “citizen” to “natural born citizen.” That change had to be made because the only citizen defined in the Constitution is a natural born citizen, each state having its own rules for naturalization, and most states differed from one another.
The case most cited by Obots claiming it rendered Obama eligible, is Wong Kim Ark. Justice Gray, who wrote the decision took a cook’s tour of English common-law before arriving at his decision, and discussed the meaning of the British natural-born-subject. Obama supporters knew they could confuse people, citing some sloppy state opinions claiming that our natural born citizen is equivalent. Gray wrote a labyrinthine decision, but cited Chief Justice Waite’s decision and quoted the Minor definition repeated above, perhaps because he may have know that his sponsor, Chester Arthur, was born on our soil to a British father. Wong Kim, born on our soil to parents who were domiciled in the U.S. was not rendered natural born; he is a 14th Amendment naturalized citizen, like Obama, Rubio, Cruz, Haley, Jindal, and McCain.
If you really want to understand, read Perkins v. Elg, a 1939 case about a girl, Marie Elg, born to naturalized parents in New York, but taken back to Sweden because her father had found work there (the depression). When she was twenty, Marie decided to return to her birth place, but was refused by the AG, who thought she had given up her citizenship. Her parents repudiated their U.S. citizenship. The decision from Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, who once ran for the presidency against Woodrow Wilson, was that Marie’s citizenship, natural born citizenship, was granted by God and could not be denied by men - congress.
That decision is interesting for a number of reasons, but here, the clear application of the Minor precedent, her parents were both naturalized citizens and she was born on our soil, is what is striking. Even though raised in Sweden, by parents who later repudiated their U.S. Citizenship, Marie was a natural born citizen, and, after reaching 35 years and with 14 years residence, could run for President if she wished.
We have a Constitution we can change, so it is noteworthy how many presumed conservatives blithely declare that because Obama did it, Article II Section 1 is now moot. By that they imply that we are ruled by a mob, or by what they tell us is popular opinion. But then why did seven Congressmen try to amend the Constitutions eligibility requirement between G.W. and Obama?
They, and who “they” are is not at all clear, wanted power and have no problem, like many if not most on this thread, depreciating the Constitution to achieve power. A few months ago they were chomping to agree with the anti-Constitutional reformers to bless Rubio. Now it is Cruz. Don’t you all wonder why the GOP power brokers seem only to be finding naturalized citizen to opposed Hillary”.
Noting that no response in this thread questions the citations I provided, quotations from founders and our Supreme Court, readers should read carefully and critically because the domination of digital media is an openly stated tactic of the left. When people argue about laws and don’t cite their sources, or intentionally confuse the terms, it probably isn’t an accident.
The Supreme Court has refused to hear any of the eligibility cases, so the Minor interpretation remains the law. Because the two Obama appointees who will lose their jobs of Obama is recognized as ineligible refuse to recuse themselves. The Supreme Court is helpless, and, as we have learned, has a Chief Justice who may be compromised, and will decide as he is ordered to decide. Many cases cite Minor as precedent, and many of those may have to be re-examined if the Minor precedent is discarded. Precedent isn’t binding, but the law is certainly weakened as it becomes more and more arbitrary.
The change being argued for Cruz, Rubio, Jindal, Haley, and Obama would likely render anchor babies eligible to our presidency, and allow Congress to make a law to enable anyone they choose to be president, certainly not what our framers and founders intended. It would further blur the lines between branches of government, already disappearing as Obama’s handlers find ways to circumvent the legislature. Much of our Constitution is already moot with federal law trumping state law whenever a judge so decides.
But when you cite U.S. Code as controlling who may be President, who is a natural born citizen, unless you enjoy being creative, you are in legal limbo. U.S. Code nowhere defines natural born citizens, and the Article Section 1 still requires that our President be natural born, regardless of what Ann Coulter says.
Agreed. Vattel noted that those in foreign lands in the service of their nation cannot be regarded as having left their country. (In the sense of Allegiance.) Their children are natural born citizens.