I am not trying to redefine it. I am pointing out how the supreme court already expressed an opinion regarding what it means, and in a case that d@mn near everybody cited in support of Obama being an American.
I heard over and over again how "Wong Kim Ark" was the absolute last word in Knowledgeable authority on the issue of citizenship. If you believe this, then you need to argue against Wong Kim Ark, not me. I'm just repeating what they said.
It has not. The Wong case mention this In Dicta. This is Professor Jacobson, a real lawyer
“In United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the issue was whether a child born in the United States to non-citizen parents from China was a citizen of the United States by virtue of the 14th Amendment. The Court held the child was a citizen, but in reaching that result engaged in some discussion of the history of citizenship and “natural born Citizen[ship]” which has sparked many theories (and a vigorous dissent). There are lengthy discussions of the concept of allegiance under British citizenship law, as well as French and European citizenship concepts. From these discussions, many have drawn all sorts of conclusions in every direction.
This paragraph, however, has led to claims that persons born abroad cannot be “natural born Citizen[s]” because birth abroad is “naturalization”:
The fourteenth amendment of the constitution, in the declaration that ‘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,’ contemplates two sources of citizenship, and two only,—birth and naturalization. Citizenship by naturalization can only be acquired by naturalization under the authority and in the forms of law. But citizenship by birth is established by the mere fact of birth under the circumstances defined in the constitution. Every person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, becomes at once a citizen of the United States, and needs no naturalization. A person born out of the jurisdiction of the United States can only become a citizen by being naturalized, either by treaty, as in the case of the annexation of foreign territory, or by authority of congress, exercised either by declaring certain classes of persons to be citizens, as in the enactments conferring citizenship upon foreign-born children of citizens, or by enabling foreigners individually to become citizens by proceedings in the judicial tribunals, as in the ordinary provisions of the naturalization acts.
It’s not clear that the Court was considering these topics in the context of the “natural born Citizen” clause, since that was not at issue in the case. Since “natural born Citizen[ship]” was not the issue in the case, and the Court did not even purport to rule on the issue as to whether someone is a “natural born Citizen,” at most there were expressions of opinion (dicta) that would not be legal precedent.”