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To: fireman15

Yep.

I wish at least one of these would go to the SCOTUS so that we have a ruling once and for all that someone born in Canada or Saudi Arabia or China or wherever can go on to become the US President, as long as they have one American parent.


9 posted on 02/12/2016 11:27:58 AM PST by 20yearsofinternet
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To: 20yearsofinternet
I'm disappointed that more FReepers are ignorant about the Constitution than I thought. This has gone before the court and is well documented at the Heritage Foundation.

The third qualification to be President is that one must be a "natural born Citizen" (or a citizen at the time of the adoption of the Constitution). Although any citizen may become a Member of Congress so long as he has held citizenship for the requisite time period, to be President, one must be "a natural born Citizen." Undivided loyalty to the United States was a prime concern. During the Constitutional Convention, John Jay wrote to George Washington, urging "a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government; and to declare expressly that the Commander in Chief of the American army shall not be given to nor devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen." Justice Story later noted that the natural-born–citizenship requirement "cuts off all chances for ambitious foreigners, who might otherwise be intriguing for the office."

Under the longstanding English common-law principle of jus soli, persons born within the territory of the sovereign (other than children of enemy aliens or foreign diplomats) are citizens from birth. Thus, those persons born within the United States are "natural born citizens" and eligible to be President. Much less certain, however, is whether children born abroad of United States citizens are "natural born citizens" eligible to serve as President. As early as 1350, the British Parliament approved statutes recognizing the rule of jus sanguinis, under which citizens may pass their citizenship by descent to their children at birth, regardless of place. Similarly, in its first naturalization statute, 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). The "natural born" terminology was dropped shortly thereafter. See, e.g., 8 U.S.C. § 1401(c). But the question remains whether the term "natural born Citizen" used in Article II includes the parliamentary rule of jus sanguinis in addition to the common law principle of jus soli. In United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), the Supreme Court relied on English common law regarding jus soli to inform the meaning of "citizen" in the Fourteenth Amendment as well as the natural-born–citizenship requirement of Article II, and noted that any right to citizenship though jus sanguinis was available only by statute, and not through the Constitution. Notwithstanding the Supreme Court's discussion in Wong Kim Ark, a majority of commentators today argue that the Presidential Eligibility Clause incorporates both the common-law and English statutory principles, and that therefore, Michigan Governor George Romney, who was born to American parents outside of the United States, was eligible to seek the Presidency in 1968

81 posted on 02/12/2016 11:54:06 AM PST by Tenacious 1 (You couldn't pay me enough to be famous for being stupid!)
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