Posted on 08/10/2020 6:52:05 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Some people go through life completely unaware of what is going on around you. You can believe that NBC is self evident, and have fun with that. Good luck.
Thomas admitted once that the Supremes were ducking the issue.
If THIS court is forced to make a ruling they will not find Obama ineligible as they would be indicting themselves in the violation of the Constitution.
They would find that anyone tangentially able to claim US citizenship at birth is eligible.
PS, Thomas knows what natural born citizen means, but does not believe the rest of his colleagues do.
“The problem for you is that the law, including the Constitution, does not distinguish in its text between “natural born citizen” and “citizen by reason of birth.”
The Framers, by virtue of the fact of inserting “natural born” into the Constitution, manifestly draw a distinction in the meaning. “Natural born” was a legal concept in English law. I keep hearing that the Constitution does not define natural born. The Constitution does not define any, or most, of the legal terms it uses.
The Naturalization Act of 1790 directly defines what a natural born citizen is, which is someone born of citizen parents. That was the LAW adopted when the Constitution was written.
And, I must repeat endlessly, that understanding was current in the United States until Obama became president.
In fact, Congress passed a decree when McCain first ran that he was a natural born citizen. No one ever contested he was not a citizen. Whatever Harris’s situation is I don’t know, but for her to be natural born, her parents must have been citizens at the time of her birth.
“...she is a natural born citizen, according to the law as it exists now.”
A law of Congress cannot amend the Constitution. The Constitution requires the the president be natural born. Natural born was a concept in English law, and repeated in the Naturalization Act of 1790, that states one has to be born of citizen parents to be natural born.
Anchor babies today are not naturalized, but are definitely not natural born.
He would need someone to bring the matter before the court and three other justices to agree to hear it before Thomas could settle it.
Are sunlight and moonshine matter in the Constitution?
I suspect nearly everyone believed that before 1960, it took several years of enlightenment by Progressives to make us doubt plain English. Fortunately I am not as enlightened as you seem to be.
Here’s a question: WHY did the founding fathers require natural born citizenship? It’s because they wanted LOYAL presidents. My opinion is that any case brought before the court would have to show proof of the candidate’s loyalty.
Yep — those Chinese babies are US citizens. It’s a weakness in our system that needs to be corrected by an amendment. A natural born citizen must be the child of US citizens (natural born or other). So, an immigrant can not be President. And their children cannot be President unless they are born *after* the immigrant becomes a citizen.
When I was a kid someone told me that the natural born citizen clause was to prevent Alexander Hamilton (who the founding fathers hated), from being President.
Anchor babies are in fact naturalized by legislation.
Natural born citizens need no legislation for citizenship as they are naturally citizens.
Hamilton would have been covered under the part “ or a citizen at the time of the adoption of this Constitution” that grandfathered in all of the founders.
They knew it would be 35 years before there would be any natural born citizens of the new USA.
Washington was quite fond of Hamilton, Jefferson much less so. Burr hated him.
bttt
From upthread courtesy of cboldt:
In Cruz’s case, we have SCOTUS in Rogers v. Bellei (1971). Applied to Cruz, he was automatically naturalized by statute. No naturalization ceremony required, Congress chooses the extent and content of naturalization ritual and process. This varies depending on the circumstances attending the Congressional grant of citizenship.
Bellei had his citizenship stripped for failure to complete the citizenship requirements then in the statute. This statutory stripping mechanism could not work but for the fact that Bellei was a naturalized citizen.
The 14th Amendment was nothing but a naturalization statute on steroids. It was certainly never intended to be used to justify recognizing as U.S. citizens individuals born in the United States to parents here only temporarily or illegally or accidentally, e.g., here after walking uninvited and undetected through a gap in a border wall, here as tourists, here on student visas, here because they are consular staff or or working under a foreign ambassador, here because their airplane flight was forced for whatever reason to land in the U.S. (or foreign flag boat, ship, submarine, etc.), here as part of an invading army, or even here while yet undecided whether or not to remain here permanently or start the process of securing U.S. citizenship (and hopefully simultaneously fully renouncing any and all current citizenships).
With respect to any one or more or all of the above-mentioned categories of individuals, or other similar categories, the Congress could pass a new law today, pursuant to its power under the U.S. Constitution to “establish an uniform rule of naturalization”, by operation of which new law any child born in the U.S. to one or two such individuals present in the United States only temporarily (meaning, not permanently domiciled in the U.S. as was the case with both of Wong Kim Ark’s parents) is henceforth to be recognized by all interested parties as a U.S. citizen. Individuals born to such parent(s) in such circumstances would not logically be considered natural born citizens. Rather, they would properly be referred to as “naturalized citizens”, by virtue of the fact that they owe their status as a citizen to an article of U.S. statutory law enacted by Congress pursuant to its above-mentioned specifically enumerated and Constitutionally-assigned naturalization power.
Congress has no power under the U.S Constitution to declare anyone a “natural born Citizen”, to declare anyone to NOT be a “natural born Citizen”, or to alter the definition of the Constitutional term “natural born Citizen”, e.g., either so as to broaden it to include from that point forward individuals that did not qualify under the original meaning of such term, or to narrow it to exclude individuals that previously qualified under the original meaning of such term. Only a Constitutional Amendment can bring about such a change of meaning. And even then, such change can be said to have taken place ONLY if the language of a given Constitutionsl Amendment logically REQUIRES such a change. On the other hand, if the contrary is true, meaning that one or more alternative interpretations of such Constitutional Amendment exist that are also logical/feasible but require NO such change in meaning, then one of those alternative interpretations, and NOT such definition-broadening or definition-narrowing interpretation, must be adopted and thereafter considered authoritative. This latter canon of construction is the reason why the post-civil-war 14th Amendment, for example, worked no change at all to the meaning of the term “natural born Citizen” contained in the original version of the U.S. Constitution adopted in 1788.
John Marshall, the fourth Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, declared in an opinion he wrote and handed down in the 1803 Supreme Court case of Marbury vs. Madison that it was uniquely the province and power of the Supreme Court (being at the top of the judicial branch of the U.S.) to declare to the rest of us (including the two other branches of the federal government, namely, the executive and legislative) what any given word or phrase contained in the U.S. Constitution (or in any amendments thereto) means.
By now it is nearly universally recognized that the only way for the Supreme Court to legitimately and authoritatively construe Constitutional language is by means of so-called “original meaning” jurisprudence, in accordance with which the Court: 1) ideally seeks out and exposes itself to every contemporaneous or near-contemporaneous source of information known or at least thought to be potentially reliable and which appears, in at least one way or another, to bear on, or be in some way relevant to the (as yet undetermined) correct meaning of the phrase in question as of the specific time and date the law in question was passed, 2) deliberately weighs each such source according to various indicia of reliability based on demonstrated provenance and various other contextual factors as appropriate, 3) hopefully applies a good dose of logic, 4) hopefully avoids emotion, 5) hopefully purges itself of bias based on preconceived notions or arising out of the push and pull of partisan politics, and then, and only then, once the meatgrinder stops moving, 6) laying down the requested or required definition. The definition so arrived at is then applied to the facts of the immediate case or controversy then before the Court, and either at that point, or after further deliberations or analysis, an appropriate decision is rendered that resolves that specific case or controversy, either in full, or at least with respect to some important part.
Congress has traditionally deferred to the above-referenced holding of Marbury vs. Madison.
For its part, the Supreme Court has never revised or overturned that holding.
Accordingly it is up to the Supreme Court to declare, in the context of some future case or controversy, either: 1) that the definition of “natural born citizen” it set forth in its 1874 decision in Minor v. Happersett was an authoritative declaration of such definiton fully applicable to all future cases and controversies (including the one then before it), or 2) that such definition, though NOT authoritatively laid down by means of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Minor v. Happersett, was nevertheless CORRECT (and here is why, etc.) and is accordingly being authoritatively laid down in the context of the present case or controversy, 3) that the definition set forth in Minor v. Happersett was actually INCORRECT, but that some other definition of “natural born Citizen” different in at least some important way from the one set forth in Minor IS CORRECT (and here is why, etc.), that such other definition now being authoritively laid down for use in this and any future cases or controveries to which it may apply, or 4) that the definition set forth in Minor v. Happersett, though not necessarily incorrect, nevertheless may be more broad or all-encompassing than is necessary to resolve the specific eligibility question being posed in the specific case or controversy now before it.
What would be a dream come true would be for such a decision to come from the U.S. Supreme Court between now and November, perhaps as a result of a federal lawsuit brought by President Trump’s legal team challenging Senator Kamala Harris’ appearance on one or another state ballot as the Democrats’ VPOTUS nominee for the fall election, at least declaring her Constitutionally ineligible for the office of Vice President, if not also (based on the breadth of the NBC definition arrived at) declaring Obama to have been ineligible to the office of POTUS, and his so-called presidency to have constituted nothing more than an eight-year-long low-down usurpation. Bye Bye Wise Latina, bye bye Elena Kagan, bye bye Obamacare, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Even if the Supreme Court were to stop short of exploring either Barack Obama’s POTUS eligibility or John McCain’s POTUS eligibility as not strictly necessary to answer the specific question of whether Harris’ birth circumstances rendered her VPOTUS eligible or ineligible, even a partial NBC definition that excludes individuals like Harris (born in the United States to two non-citizen parents ostensibly residing here only temporarily, as opposed to permanently as in the case of Wong Kim Ark) would not only blow a solar system-sized hole in the future plans of the Deep State, it would also potentially leave Obama’s entire legacy at immediate risk depending on the specific wording of the restrictive NBC definition arrived at by the Court and the content and flow of the accompanying analysis and discussion.
Given the risks involved, as well as Trump’s history of challenging not only Obama’s purported POTUS-eligibility, but also that of fellow Republican Marco Rubio (whose birth circumstances were at least similar to if not legally identical to those of Senator Harris), this absolutely has to be on Joe Biden’s mind. Can Biden justify selecting Senator Harris as his running mate in such an environment? If Biden or his handlers believe that Trump would most likely hold off and not pounce with a full-speed legal challenge to Harris’ eligibility out of fear of how such a challenge might look to the average battleground state voter combined with the near-certainty that the Deep State will react like a cornered wolverine, he might roll the dice and pick Harris. On the other hand, one of Trump’s strengths is his sheer unpredictability. This alone might cause Harris to be bounced from contention (with no satisfactory explanation, of course).
These are certainly interesting times!
"A weakness in our system."
Still, for academic purposes, it fun to notice "when, where, who, and circumstances" in the application of the constitution that this weakness appeared.
That said, Congress routinely proposes an amendment (was an Orin Hatch pet project) to allow naturalized citizens to assume the presidency, so the direction of change is clear. Relax the restrictions because all politicians are doing public service which necessarily makes them good people.
-- an immigrant can not be President. And their children cannot be President unless they are born *after* the immigrant becomes a citizen. --
The second part of that seems contrary to your previous assertion that a child born on US soil is a natural born US citizen regardless of the citizenship or residency status of the parents. The vacation baby industry has parents who aren't citizens and aren't immigrants, and you say their children can be president due to a weakness in our system.
What you laid out is the circumstance of Kamala Harris. Her non-citizen parents here on student visa.
Slovenia could pass a law that anyone who marries someone born in Slovenia is automatically a citizen. Would that affect DJT's NBC status?
I think there is a case to be made. I don't think this is it. I think the actual case will fall on deaf ears most of the time and we should spend our time and energy instead pointing out why she would be a horrible VP.
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