Note the reference to Natural Law in the very first sentence of our Declaration of Independence.
Posted on 03/03/2015 5:44:58 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
I read the comments sections on my articles. One of the comments I see consistently is "I like Ted Cruz, but I am worried he is not constitutionally qualified to be president."
So I decided to look into the issue.
After doing some research, here's what I discovered:
Ted Cruz was born in Canada. He had (past tense) Canadian citizenship, which he was entitled to automatically, having been born in Canada, and which he has since renounced. He was also born with American citizenship. His mother was an American; his father was not.
The Constitution says any candidate for president must be 35 years of age, a resident within the United States for 14 years and a "natural born citizen."
The question then is, what is a natural born citizen? I don't think there is any doubt that being born abroad doesn't prevent Cruz from being a natural born citizen. If so, any children born to American parents while abroad wouldn't be Americans. That makes no sense. And to eliminate doubt, Congress expressly passed a law saying children of Americans born outside America were in fact natural born Americans.
The Nationality Act of 1940 outlines which children become “nationals and citizens of the United States at birth.” In addition to those who are born in the United States or born outside the country to parents who were both citizens — or, interestingly, found in the United States without parents and no proof of birth elsewhere — citizenship goes to babies born to one American parent who has spent a certain number of years here...
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Should Anwar al-Awlaki have been eligible to run for President?
Anwar al-Awlaki was born in 1971 to Yemeni citizens in Las Cruces, New Mexico. US Intelligence reports that, from the age of seven, al-Awlaki was raised abroad, becoming an enemy of America, indoctrinated by the highest powers of Al-Qaida and studying under the same teachers as Osama bin Laden. He eventually influenced various terrorists such as the Fort Hood shooter, Nidal Malik Hasan, and helped plan the thwarted attack of the “Underwear Bomber,” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. Al- Awlaki’s phone number was found among the contact information of Ramzi bin al-Shibh, the man known as “the 20th hijacker” in the 9/11 attacks.
Those who suggest that there is no distinction between “citizen” and “Natural Born Citizen” would have us believe and accept that such a person might have been eligible to run for President of the US simply because he was born in America. According to defenders of the alleged eligibility of Barack Obama (or Marco Rubio, or Bobby Jindal), any person born on US soil to one or more alien citizens could be the leader of the free world. At some point, according to that path of logic, this should have included Anwar al-Awlaki.
So, to say that every child born in America is a natural born citizen is also to say that any foreign interest whose child was born in the US could be allowed to raise that child abroad as an enemy of the US and return that child to this country in time to meet the Constitution’s 14-year residency requirement for President. Considering that Islam has been at war with itself and the rest of the world at least since the death of Muhammad almost 1400 years ago, it takes very little imagination to project how a powerful enemy of the US might take the necessary 35 years and other resources to groom a “Manchurian Candidate” for the US Presidency.
If we accept the premise that every person born in the US is a natural born citizen, we allow the establishment of a flawed precedent permitting a family such as that of Anwar al-Awlaki (or a communist government, or a Mexican drug cartel, etc.) to gain control of our country through an orchestrated, long-term attack on the Presidency. This is precisely what the Framers were trying to prevent with the natural born citizen requirement.
A note from John Jay to George Washington explains to us why the Framer’s included the natural born citizen requirement for POTUS. It was not, as some would have us believe, to discriminate against any particular race or to keep white men in power. Jay stated outright that the goal was “to provide a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government.”
This is not a proscription against any ethnic heritage. It was the Framer’s best effort, within the framework of a free society, to restrict the trust of our highest office only to persons with the greatest likelihood of being reared with an abiding love of American values. The Constitution itself argues against the assertion that every child born in America is also a natural born citizen.
Constitutional eligibility requirements for members of the House and Senate include that they be “citizens,” with progressively tighter restrictions on length of residency for Senators and the President. Following that same pattern of progressively increased restrictions, the Constitution also requires that the President must be, not just a citizen, but a “natural born Citizen.”
The natural born citizen requirement is not an incidental flourish of language, but a national security provision of the supreme law of our land. It is not a “big tent” invitation but an intentionally restrictive, but not racist, prohibition. It serves as a foundation on which to permanently secure and preserve the rights and freedoms which are the heritage of all Americans. It’s purpose is to ensure, to the greatest possible extent, that every American President has sole allegiance to the USA by virtue of a childhood steeped in the richness of American culture, anchored in a respect for freedom, emboldened by the spirit of independence and innovation, and committed to the continuation of the noble experiment of a republic created and protected by free men and women and their progeny.
Ted Cruz’s mother is American, not Yemini.
James Madison, “The Father of the Constitution,” May, 1789:
“It is an established maxim that birth is a criterion of allegiance. Birth however derives its force sometimes from place and sometimes from parentage, but in general place is the most certain criterion; it is what applies in the United States; it will therefore be unnecessary to investigate any other.”
According to the US Supreme Court of some time in the 1880s and the intent of the framers, a Natural Born Citizen needs two parents that are American Citizens.
The Constitution is not a dictionary. The words in it are to be parsed as they were understood in the 18th century.
Explain to me why Chester Arthur lied about his father's lack of citizenship until Arthur was 14 and also burned his personal papers before his death.
It took a historian writing in 2006 to uncover the pertinent facts of his life. Gregory J. Dehler, Chester Alan Arthur: The Life of a Gilded Age Politician and President, Published by Nova Science Publishers, Incorporated, 2006, ISBN 1600210791, 9781600210792
From his actions, we can deduce the general understanding of the meaning Natural Born Citizen. ARTHUR LIED BECAUSE HE DID NOT THINK HE WAS ELIGIBLE.
NO ANSWER.
And the legal history on this topic is not at all extensive or clear. So your opinion is just that, an opinion YOU hope (or maybe feel) to be correct.
US Law, 8 USC 1801, stipulates who is and is not a natural born citizen. Any idiot that thinks they have some coded secret message from the founders that trumps what this law says and what the courts will uphold is an freaking ignorant idiot. Go piss into the wind while you’re at it.
8 U.S. Code § 1401 - Nationals and citizens of United States at birth
The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth:
(a) a person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof;
(b) a person born in the United States to a member of an Indian, Eskimo, Aleutian, or other aboriginal tribe: Provided, That the granting of citizenship under this subsection shall not in any manner impair or otherwise affect the right of such person to tribal or other property;
(c) a person born outside of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents both of whom are citizens of the United States and one of whom has had a residence in the United States or one of its outlying possessions, prior to the birth of such person;
(d) a person born outside of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is a citizen of the United States who has been physically present in the United States or one of its outlying possessions for a continuous period of one year prior to the birth of such person, and the other of whom is a national, but not a citizen of the United States;
(e) a person born in an outlying possession of the United States of parents one of whom is a citizen of the United States who has been physically present in the United States or one of its outlying possessions for a continuous period of one year at any time prior to the birth of such person;
(f) a person of unknown parentage found in the United States while under the age of five years, until shown, prior to his attaining the age of twenty-one years, not to have been born in the United States;
(g) a person born outside the geographical limits of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is an alien, and the other a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, was physically present in the United States or its outlying possessions for a period or periods totaling not less than five years, at least two of which were after attaining the age of fourteen years: Provided, That any periods of honorable service in the Armed Forces of the United States, or periods of employment with the United States Government or with an international organization as that term is defined in section 288 of title 22 by such citizen parent, or any periods during which such citizen parent is physically present abroad as the dependent unmarried son or daughter and a member of the household of a person
(A) honorably serving with the Armed Forces of the United States, or
(B) employed by the United States Government or an international organization as defined in section 288 of title 22, may be included in order to satisfy the physical-presence requirement of this paragraph. This proviso shall be applicable to persons born on or after December 24, 1952, to the same extent as if it had become effective in its present form on that date; and
(h) a person born before noon (Eastern Standard Time) May 24, 1934, outside the limits and jurisdiction of the United States of an alien father and a mother who is a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, had resided in the United States.
"The citizenship of no man could be previous to the declaration of independence, and, as a natural right, belongs to none but those who have been born of citizens since the 4th of July, 1776."....David Ramsay, 1789.
A Dissertation on Manner of Acquiring Character & Privileges of Citizen of U.S.-by David Ramsay-1789
The Law of Nations or the Principles of Natural Law (1758)
The Laws of Nature and of Nature's God: The True Foundation of American Law
Note the reference to Natural Law in the very first sentence of our Declaration of Independence.
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