Posted on 12/21/2015 6:04:59 AM PST by HomerBohn
“America is a nation of immigrants. The difference is previously people came here to be American and for a better life.”
I apologize. I thought you could reason.
You might want to read them next time. From the one you linked to: "Similarly, in 2008, one of the two major party candidates for President, Senator John McCain, was born outside the United States on a U.S. military base in the Panama Canal Zone to a U.S. citizen parent. Despite a few spurious suggestions to the contrary, there is no serious question that Senator McCain was fully eligible to serve as President, wholly apart from any murky debate about the precise sovereign status of the Panama Canal Zone at the time of Senator McCain’s birth."
Your link says the same thing I am saying.
While some constitutional issues are truly difficult, with framing-era sources either nonexistent or contradictory, here, the relevant materials clearly indicate that a "natural born Citizen" means a citizen from birth with no need to go through naturalization proceedings.
I did read them and I read many others when Obama was running. The interest in this topic over the last 7 years has improved and refined the analysis. The first analysis left open the possibility or allowed the reading into the discussion of a separate category of birth/birth to citizen parents but the next few I looked at for completeness did not and they were both closely reasoned.
As I said it really is no longer possible to separate the idea of born in America from the idea of born in America from citizen parent(s).
This is not change. It was this way from the beginning.
Congress declared that “the children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond the sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens.” 1 Stat. 104 (1790).
http://www.heritage.org/constitution/#!/articles/2/essays/82/presidential-eligibility
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=001/llsl001.db&recNum=227
No kidding. . . .
Problem is I read so many of them in the years following Obama’s election that I thought I knew the topic and saw what I wanted to see.
There has been more analysis in the ensuing time on Jus sanguinis vs jus soli. Previously the analyses came down on the side of the first, now the second is being recognized as the decider in America. Whether right or wrong that appears to be the American tradition, and convincing documentation and analysis relevant to that point of view has been teased out of the fabric of historical jurisprudence and correspondence.
No you misunderstand my original point. The child of American citizen(s) born anywhere is a natural born American citizen at birth. On that point we are in agreement.
My point was that natural born necessitated having allegiance to the country at birth. Children born to citizens of other countries are citizens of their fathers/parents country at birth no matter where they are born. It has been reasoned that while they are American citizens at birth since they are born here because there is the possibility of divided loyalties they are not natural born citizens. They are after all of dual citizenship at birth and are being raised by parent presumably loyal to another country, since the parents are not American citizens. This distinction does not appear to have held up over the years but it was that point that I was originally making.
I haven't read anything that supports that claim.
SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, that the children of persons duly naturalized, dwelling within the United States, and being under the age of twenty-one years, at the time of such naturalization, and the children of citizens of the United States, born out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States, shall be considered as citizens of the United States: Provided, That the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons, whose fathers have never been resident of the United States: Provided also, That no person heretofore proscribed by any state, or who has been legally convicted of having joined the army of Great Britain during the late war, shall be admitted a citizen as foresaid, without the consent of the legislature of the state, in which such person was proscribed.Seems like personal agendas get in the way of defining natural born citizenship just like they do defining marriage nowadays or defining global warming or climate change or anything else you can think of.
Perhaps our current troubles with absolutes and rigid definitions demonstrates one of the reasons why John Adams wrote to the Officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massacusetts on October 11, 1798 that:
"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."We are not that people at the moment, but we could be again.
We went from the 1890 "Gay 90s" to the fundamentally redefined very gay 1990s.
Sooner or later the pendulum will swing back again.
Failure to agree with your revisionist history is not a failure to reason.
Sections 1 and 2 of that act defined what was required to become a naturalized citizen of the US.
Section 3 defines who that process does not apply, they are already citizens by the conditions of their birth.
Just google on Jus sanguinis
http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/jus-sanguinis-is-the-rule-for-the-united-49015/
Then by that logic Ted Cruz cannot be a natural born citizen, regardless of his mother's nationality, because the circumstances of his birth gave him dual citizenship.
I understand the concept. I don't see it in our Constitution.
“Failure to agree with your revisionist history”
You must some kind of ignorant person. Rush Limbaugh talked at length about the history of immigration a few weeks ago, using stats and historical facts. His conclusion: the “we are a nation of immigrants” is liberal revisionism of our history. Or, you can get off your ass and do your own search.
And, by the way, your repeated assertion,”we are a nation of immigrants” is not proof that we are a nation of immigrants.
Our nation started off as a nation in 1776 when a group of British colonies coalesced as one nation. They descended from British pioneers that had migrated to North American over a hundred years prior. Had a highly developed civilization. Historians say that there was not a single capital crime committed in the colony of Massachusetts from 1650 to 1750.
blah blah blah
English, Irish, Italian, Polish, German, Greek, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese all immigrated here in large numbers from 1620 through the 1930s.
Everyone here with the exception of Native Americans are the descendants of immigrants.
That would make sense. While all are citizens, not all are natural born citizens.
The natural born form is better understood as an exclusive, pure kind of thing rather than such a loose standard or there would be no point of making any citizenship distinction or reason to mention "natural born citizen" at all.
Moreover, both the 1790 and the 1795 definitions highlight the citizenship status of the father at time of the child's birth and a foreign father cancels the American at birth citizenship thing altogether.
So much for anchor baby citizenship, too.
Had a highly developed civilization. Historians say that there was not a single capital crime committed in the colony of Massachusetts from 1650 to 1750.
- - - - - - - -
Good times back then:
Penalty for Keeping Christmas, 1659:
http://www.mass.gov/courts/docs/lawlib/docs/christmas1659.pdf
For preventing disorders arising in several places within this jurisdiction, by reason of some still observing such festivals as were superstitiously kept in other countries, to the great dishonor of God and offence of others, it is therefore ordered by this Court and the authority thereof, that whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting, or any other way, upon such accounts as aforesaid, every such person so offending shall pay for every such offence five shillings, as a fine to the country.
No. I am saying there was and is only two types of citizens:
Naturalized through a legal process
Natural born
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