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To: Cboldt; txrangerette; CodeToad

You can’t elevate above the Constitution the supreme law of the land that is derived at by the process laid out in the Constitution. With the Constitution and Constitutionally approved Treaties, we are talking about what the constitution calls “the supreme law of the land.”

And the constitution gave the area of citizenship to Congress.

Unless you know of some place in the Constitution where it defines “natural born citizen.”;


510 posted on 10/30/2013 10:21:25 AM PDT by xzins ( Retired Army Chaplain and Proud of It! Those who truly support our troops pray for victory!)
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To: xzins
-- And the constitution gave the area of citizenship to Congress. --

Naturalization, to be precise about it. Your argument depends on rules of naturalization being controlling authority to define natural born citizen.

If I understand your argument, since rules of naturalization is a power of Congress, the definition of "natural born citizen" is also a power of Congress. My point is that under that source of authority, the definition of "natural born citizen" is not fixed. Whatever "natural born citizen" meant 50 years ago is different today (the rules of naturalization as applied to foreign born children of a citizen parent have changed), and can be different again tomorrow. The phrase "natural born citizen" has no independent/constitutional definition, it depends on congress to define it.

Now, whether or not that elevates the congressional enactment to be above the constitution is just argument over the intention of the founders. If the founders intended "natural born citizen" to have a fixed meaning, then giving congress the power to change the meaning would be I submit, elevating congress/statute over the constitution. On the other hand, if you are right, then the founders never intended "natural born citizen" to have a fixed meaning.

517 posted on 10/30/2013 10:42:07 AM PDT by Cboldt
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