Posted on 08/12/2020 5:36:12 PM PDT by Ben Dover
Nope. Both parents simply need to be American citizens at the time of his birth.
She, being the child of Aliens, is a Title 8 citizen and not a natural born citizen.
It states a legal fiction. It isn't a definition, unless "legal fiction" and "definition" are taken as synonyms.
Couple modern examples. A patent application is considered as received at the USPTO the day it is deposited as US Express mail. It is actually received at the USPTO a day or two later, but it is considered received when it actually hasn't been received. Legal fiction.
A person 26 years old is considered as a child under certain tax statutes. A person is considered a legal adult at age 18 most otherwise. The tax child is a legal fiction.
The 1790 naturalization act uses the "shall be considered as" language. This is not the same as "is."
Some legal fictions are theoretically out of constitution bounds. A 30 year old shall be considered as 35 years old for purposes of eligibility to POTUS, for example, contradicts the constitution. But otherwise, re-aging is a legit legal fiction if Congress feels like it.
Ted Cruz is as much a POC as AOC.
It’s true that the 1790 act used the language of “shall be considered as” and was therefore invalid which the Congress recognized as an error and repealed it, but it does illustrate the thinking at the time.
Natural born citizen means born here of citizen parents.
All of those are wrong.
She’s not American.
Maybe Indian, Jamaican, Black, Asian and African but not American. Of any sort.
And if the democrats win the house, Nancy Pelosi will be President.
The following is from The Rights Of Man, Chapter 4 — Of Constitutions. While it doesn't have the authority of the law (neither did Thomas Jefferson's 1802 Letter to the Danbury Baptists that coined "wall of separation between church and state"), it is a window into contemporary understanding of "natural born citizen." It was written by a man widely recognized as the most influential writer of the time of Independence because of his plain writing style that resonated with the common person.
If there is any government where prerogatives might with apparent safety be entrusted to any individual, it is in the federal government of America. The president of the United States of America is elected only for four years. He is not only responsible in the general sense of the word, but a particular mode is laid down in the constitution for trying him. He cannot be elected under thirty-five years of age; and he must be a native of the country.Yes, Paine did use the term "native of the country." Does this mean "native born" instead of "natural born?" We have to look at the following statements to answer that question.In a comparison of these cases with the Government of England, the difference when applied to the latter amounts to an absurdity. In England the person who exercises prerogative is often a foreigner; always half a foreigner, and always married to a foreigner. He is never in full natural or political connection with the country, is not responsible for anything, and becomes of age at eighteen years; yet such a person is permitted to form foreign alliances, without even the knowledge of the nation, and to make war and peace without its consent.
But this is not all. Though such a person cannot dispose of the government in the manner of a testator, he dictates the marriage connections, which, in effect, accomplish a great part of the same end. He cannot directly bequeath half the government to Prussia, but he can form a marriage partnership that will produce almost the same thing. Under such circumstances, it is happy for England that she is not situated on the Continent, or she might, like Holland, fall under the dictatorship of Prussia. Holland, by marriage, is as effectually governed by Prussia, as if the old tyranny of bequeathing the government had been the means.
The presidency in America (or, as it is sometimes called, the executive) is the only office from which a foreigner is excluded, and in England it is the only one to which he is admitted. A foreigner cannot be a member of Parliament, but he may be what is called a king. If there is any reason for excluding foreigners, it ought to be from those offices where mischief can most be acted, and where, by uniting every bias of interest and attachment, the trust is best secured. But as nations proceed in the great business of forming constitutions, they will examine with more precision into the nature and business of that department which is called the executive. What the legislative and judicial departments are every one can see; but with respect to what, in Europe, is called the executive, as distinct from those two, it is either a political superfluity or a chaos of unknown things.
Paine refers to Engish examples in order to define this. Paine cites "foreigner" and "half a foreigner" as the oppposite to "full natural" connection with the country. So, what is "half a foreigner?"
It seems to me that "half a foreigner" is a person with one parent who is a citizen and one parent who is not. This person does not have have a "full natural... connection with the country."
Paine wrote plainly of why the Framers did not want "half-foreigners" to be president, and why only people with a "full natural... connection with the country" were allowed to become President.
Now compare Paine's understanding of a "full natural" citizen with the Preamble to the Constitution. The Preamble says that the Constitution was "ordained and established... to secure the Blessings of Liberty... to ourselves and our Posterity."
"Ourselves" means "We the People," the citizens of the United States who established the Constitution and delegated our powers to the states and the federal government.
"Our Posterity" means the children born to We the People, the citizen descendants of citizen parents.
Resident aliens are not "We the People," as they are not citizens and cannot vote for representation in the House of Representatives. Since resident aliens are expected to be here for a long time, it is reasonable to assume that they will have children. Their children may be born here, but they are not citizens descended via parentage, as their parents are still citizens of their home countries. Therefore, children of resident aliens are not the "Posterity" of "We the People."
If resident aliens choose to become citizens (become "We the People"), then their subsequent children will be the posterity of We the People, and will also be citizen descendants of citizen parents.
This is what Paine was speaking of when he wrote of "foreigners" and "half a foreigner." Paine's description of the meaning of Article II was written in 1791, and I take it to be reflective of the common understanding of the time. This was, after all, written just two years after the ratification of the Constitution. If Paine said that natural born citizens meant both parents were citizens, then that was the plain meaning.
This is why I also have postulated that "natural born citizen" wasn't meant to describe a kind of citizenship (Article I Section 8 gives Congress the power to define the rules of Naturalization), it was included as another qualification to be President.
Article II says that one has to be at least 35 years old and resided in the country for 10 years, too, to be President, but we don't say that "citizen over 35" is a class of citizenship just because it's in the same clause describing the President.
So how did "natural born" become a class of citizenship instead of just another narrowing requirement in Article II to be President? What's wrong with removing the phrase and claiming that to be President, one has to be descended from citizen parents, be over 35, and resided in the country for 10 years, without the "natural born" phrase being automatically assumed to mean class of citizenship? The intent of the clause remains unchanged. Note that the simpler term "citizen" is what is used as a qualification for Congress, but with lower age requirements. Why separate "natural born citizen" and ordinary "citizen" if both were to mean the same thing? Why hold the President to a higher standard than Congress if the words were synonymous?
I say that the reason "natural born" was placed into the Constitution in that specific location in Article II is that it was a "term of art," and everyone had a common understanding that it was meant as a qualification to be met in order to become President, along with age and residency. It is what separates the Executive from the Legislative. It is what gives power to the Preamble "to secure the Blessings of Liberty... to ourselves and our Posterity" by ensuring that the highest office in the land was held by citizen children of citizen parents.
Thomas Paine knew all this when he wrote that chapter on Constitutions in 1791.
-PJ
YEP, followed you for many years
But he’s a Republican, so he’s a “white Latino”.
Nobody cares about this stupid birther crap!
Whackjob conspiracy theories only make Trump look even more stupid, if he starts this birther crap again he’s toast, America is sick of hearing it.
She’s as eligible as the Obozo was and according to his records of proof or the lack there of, he was not eligible to serve as POTUS. That didn’t stop the democrats, they simply altered the official democrat party eligibility form by rewarding it to illegally verify their ineligible candidate. They got away with it for the Obozo and now there is a precedent so to heck with what the US Constitution requires. So now anyone from anywhere in the world can run and become the US President.
I'd phrase that a bit different. As a legal fiction, it's aim was to naturalize children foreign-born to citizen parent (father). It isn't the use of legal fiction per se that is the problem, it is that this particular legal fiction is constitutionally out of bounds.
If it had said a person so born shall be considered a citizen, no sweat. But it didn't say that. Rephrased, it said a naturalized citizen shall be considered to be a natural born citizen. On paper, that is constitutionally out of bounds.
As a practical matter, the constitution is toilet paper. Our government is in a state of rebellion.
You likely know this, but to give comfort to the public that McCain was eligible, this act was formally claimed in an act of of the US Senate to state a definition, not a legal fiction. What a bunch of schmucks. They treeat us like we are morons.
Both parents only have to be full US citizens when child was born imo.
Kamala is an anchor baby, but congress has deemed anchor babies to be citizens. We should fix the anchor baby problem, and we won’t have a Kamala in the future, but for now it is what it is.
As a practical matter, the constitution is toilet paper. Our government is in a state of rebellion.
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Sadly you are 100% correct.
Everyone who uses the term “birther” is participating in an Alinsky attack on the Constitution.
That said, we live in a country of law and the final word on this issue is the Supreme Court of the United States.
Absent this issue in a Presidential campaign turning on the question of Natural Born Citizenship under Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, the Country is now prepared to address the 14th Amendment issue of birth under the jurisdiction in the territory of the US and we might well prevail in the context of Trumps general views on citizenship and immigration.
In the context of the current makeup of the U S Supreme Court and a Presidential campaign, if the issue gets to the Court following an election victory by Biden Harris, the Court will accept the certification by the Speaker that she is eligible and will come down 6-3 in her favor on the eligibility issue.
You can make all the arguments you like about how bad that decision would be but it is where the real world is.
On the other hand, if we can look at the 14th Amendment jurisdiction issue absent a direct impact on the presidential eligibility question, there is a reasonable chance the long term result will be in our favor.
Conclusion
Article II of the U.S. Constitution requires a President to be a “natural born Citizen.” But, as the Supreme Court once observed: “The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that.”[415] The words appear not to have been used in any law in the United States for the past two centuries, and have not been used in any U.S. national law since 1790. To date, no one has offered a clear and persuasive account of the phrase’s original meaning. Original meanings are rarely ascertainable, but this case is a rare exception. The relevant historical evidence, which was exhaustively reviewed in this Article—Constitutional Convention debates, English common law, natural law, law of nations, canonical Anglo-American treatises like Blackstone’s and Kent’s, the 1784 Maryland Lafayette statute, the 1790 U.S. Naturalization Statute—all lead to the conclusion that the original meaning of “natural born Citizen” in Article II refers to a person either born in the United States, or outside it to a parent in government service or to a U.S. citizen father. This answer is faithful to then-universal natural law principles of jus soli and jus sanguinis, and to the material condition of the early United States as a new nation geographically distant from Europe but dependent on it for trade and commerce.
http://www.aulawreview.org/natural-born-citizen/
You are so full of crap. You have no clue.
Is the phrase “the right to bear arms shall not be infringed” a legal fiction in your strange world?
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