Posted on 02/20/2016 8:52:39 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Now Donald Trump is questioning Marco Rubio' eligibility for the presidency.
In a tweet Saturday, Trump shared a video of what appears to be an attorney making a bizarre case that not only Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who was born in Canada, but Rubio, whose parents immigranted from Cuba, is not eligible to become president.
In the tweet to his 6.3 million followers, Trump quoted a message sent to him by another Twitter user, who at the time appeared to have five followers: "@realDonaldTrump Mr. Trump...BOTH Cruz AND Rubio are ineligible to be POTUS! It's a SLAM DUNK CASE!! Check it!"
The tweet links to a video on the website of the Powdered Whig Society, a group that says it is dedicated "to the restoration and strict obedience to the United States Constitution."
The 12-minute video shows an unidentified woman who is purported to be a litigation attorney describe what it means to be a natural born citizen. She argues that both Rubio and Cruz are citizens, but not "natural born citizens" according to the Constitution, which says only natural born citizens may become president.
Rubio was born in Miami. That makes him a natural born U.S. citizen under the Constitution. But the unnamed woman in the video Trump posted says he is not a "naturalized citizen," because his citizenship is defined under Section 1 of the 14th Amendment. If not for this "man-made law," she says Rubio would have been born a "resident alien," the same status of his parents, both of whom were Cuban nationals.
The supposed attorney later goes on to call Congress using laws to change the original text of the Constitution as "ridiculous."
"In order to understand the genuine meaning of a text, we must use the definition the framer's use, otherwise texts become like Play-Doh. They mean whatever you want them to mean to get the outcome you want," she says.
Cruz, who was born in Canada to father who was a Cuban national and an American mother. Some legal scholars says that leaves his eligibility to run for president in question. But the supposed attorney makes a far more questionable case. She argues that when the Constitution was written, a woman's legal identity was subsumed into her husband's. That would also disqualify Cruz, she says, because it is necessary that he be born of a father who is a citizen.
When the Constitution was written in the 1780s, the purported attorney says all the framers knew what a natural born citizen was, using a definition provided in Swiss philosopher and legal expert Emerich de Vattel's book on political philosophy The Law of Nations. In it, she says, a child's status as a citizen is defined as being inherited from the father, and that it does not matter where the child is born.
Like his eye color, citizenship is "inherited by his parents, it's in his blood," she says. "Not an act of Congress."
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Developments in the Law: Immigration and Nationality
Harvard Law Review
Vol. 66, No. 4 (Feb., 1953), pp. 643-745
As you can see, this is a lengthy article. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on what the piece says), the article is not available online, at least not that I have been able to find.
That said, the authority it uses for the proposition that "Some courts [citing WKA] ... have indicated that those who claim citizenship solely by parentage are naturalized citizens ... seems opposed to the common law concept ... that jus sanguinis confers natural born citizenship" is the Michigan Law Review article, which is contradicted by SCOTUS interpretation of the constitution in both WKA and as applied in Bellei. I think the proposition is also contradicted by Wilson and Blackstone, of which I quoted Wilson, and provided links to Blackstone.
The upshot of these articles is essentially that "SCOTUS is wrong," although as shown by reference to Blackstone, Tucker on Blackstone, and Wilson, even under the law of Great Britain, conferring citizenship to those born abroad (using jus sanguinis) is a form of naturalization. The authors object to application of the words of the 14th amendment to the constitution, and advocate for a more liberal finding of "natural" (as opposed to naturalized), using some hocus pocus application of jus sanguinis.
The conclusion that as a matter of law, citizenship to person born abroad is a form of naturalization can also be deduced from the fact that Great Britain did not allow its subjects born in the colonies to become members of Parliament. This exclusion was performed by distinguishing them as "naturalized." At the same time, it claimed power over them and their posterity in perpetuity, by dint of operation of law that made them subjects of Great Britain via naturalization, with this being justified on the principle of jus sanguinis. Got some British in your blood? Then you are a citizen of Britain.
Had the founders adopted the jus sanguinis rule as controlling, the descendants of the colonists would be subjects/citizens of Great Britain, today!
Speaking just of the accuracy of law review, it is prudent to view these pieces as advocacy pieces. As such, they are prone to be misleading of what THEIR cited authorities actually say. Ten years ago, the vast weight of legal scholarship claimed that the RKBA is a collective right, and also that states may deprive their citizens of the RKBA. Hocus pocus law. The same sort of force is in play attempting to extend the scope of NBC; in Cruz's (and McCain's) case to those born abroad, and in Rubio's case, to those born here, of aliens.
I’m not cherry picking. A plain English read tells you
Two types of persons qualify:
1) a natural born citizen, or
2) a citizen of the United States, at the time of adoption...
at the time of adoption modifies citizen, not natural born citizen.
Article 1, Section 2, Clause 1
Document 18
James Wilson, The Legislative Department, Lectures on Law
1791 Works 1:407—11
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_2_1s18.html
In the constitution of Pennsylvania, the great principle, which animates and governs this subject, is secured by an explicit declaration, that “elections shall be free and equal.” This is enumerated among the great points, which are “excepted out of the general powers of government, and shall for ever remain inviolate.” The practical operation of this great and inviolable principle is thus specified and directed: “In elections by the citizens, every freeman of the age of twenty one years, having resided in the state two years next before the election, and within that time paid a state or county tax, which shall have been assessed at least six months before the election, shall enjoy the rights of an elector.”
It well deserves, in this place, to be remarked, how congenial, upon this great subject, the principles of the constitution of Pennsylvania are to those adopted by the government of the Saxons. The Saxon freemen, as we have already seen, had votes in making their general laws. The freemen of Pennsylvania, as we now see, enjoy the rights of electors. This right, it has been shown, is equivalent, and, in a state of any considerable extent, must, on every principle of order and convenience, be substituted to the other. This is far from being the only instance, in which we shall have the pleasure of finding the old Saxon maxims of government renewed in the American constitutions. Particular attention will be paid to them, as they present themselves.
Here is a historical record of communication between Saxony & Great Britain, sent from Dresden, 1868
The Executive Documents of the House of Representatives of the United States in 17 Volumes, 1873-1874
SAXONY.
Dresden, November 27, 1868
My Lord: With reference to your lordship's circular dispatch of the 11th August, directing me to report on the state of Saxon law with regard to nationality of children born of alien parents within the Saxon dominions, I have the honor to enclose in translation the information furnished me by the Saxon government on the subject. I have,
J. HUME BURNLEY.
In reply to the note of Her Britannic Majesty's charge” d’affaires of the 19th instant the undersigned has the honor to state, with reference to paragragh 2 of the law of the kingdom of Saxony of the 2nd of July, 1852, relative to acquisition and loss of citizenship, copy of which is herewith annexed, that children of aliens born in Saxony do not by the mere accident of birth acquire Saxon nationality, inasmuch as the right of Saxon citizenship by birth is obtained only on the supposition that either the father or the mother (whether lawfully married or not) were at the time of such birth, cither here or abroad, Saxon subjects. The undersigned,
FRIESEN.
Dresden, November 21, 1868.
Paragraph 2 of the law relative to acquisition and loss of Saxon citizenship of July 2, 1852:
By birth all those are entitled to Saxon citizenship whose father, or, if illegitimate, whose mother, at the time of their birth, whether at home or abroad, were Saxon subjects.
The founders did not look to British feudal law in defining citizenship, they looked to the laws of nature and nations, laws that the kings had abolished and replaced with the oppressive feudal laws at the prerogative of the king. And thus, your understanding on this subject is lacking because you have limited your resources, not taking into account the founding fathers ancient ancestors who were something else before some king made them subjects of & to his authority.
Saxon citizenship was based solely upon ‘jus sanguinis’. So now I ask again, where did James Wilson, in his discussing American law after the ratification of the Constitution, where does he state that ‘jus soli’ is the determining factor for NBC, as that was not the case for Saxony (now Germany), France, Greece, etc. etc.. from the establishment of those nations.
WOW! I did not realize that the Constitution was ratified on 2014, as that is the time of case law I asked you to provide, which to this day, you have utterly & completely side-stepped, trying to substitute modern case law as if I am that ignorant. Sorry, Charlie!
Plonk
You are about as clever and outwardly intelligent as editor-surveyor, by the way. Talk about dealing with a bad faith asshole, you qualify.
And you are ignorant of the fact that NOT all the colonies were established by the Brits and thus, not ALL their laws followed that of the Brits, including that if citizenship. Pennsylvania was established by the Dutch and then many Saxon’s (Germans) settled there, some of my own family in the mid 17th century. And thus to restore Pennsylvania to her lawful right, upon independence from the Brits, they sought to restore their heritage that was based on the laws of nature & nations, which are biblically based laws of our Creator.
And so if there is any bad faith s$$hole here, I think you ought to look into a mirror.
He perjured himself in the Arizona paperwork.
“No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States,
It says or which means both qualifiers need not be true. The person can be “natural born” or just a “Citizen of the United States.” Let’s continue:”
If what you’re spewing was in fact, true, there was absolutely no need to put in the natural born citizen part. But it’s there, and the rest does not mean what you hope it does. It only made people eligible that could not possibly be born natural born citizens, because they were already born when the Constitution was adopted. But you already know that. Unless you, like you admit, are challenged in some way.
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