Posted on 08/15/2020 2:35:33 PM PDT by Ennis85
Well, that didn’t take long.
A non-White American citizen born right here in the United States has gotten a spot on the Democratic presidential ticket, and the birthers have come scurrying out from whatever rock they have been living under since Barack Obama left office.
Within hours of former vice president Joe Biden’s announcement Wednesday of his history-making running mate, once-reputable Newsweek posted a story posing “Some Questions for Kamala Harris About Eligibility.”
The author, John Eastman, a conservative law professor, wrote that “some” are “questioning” whether Harris might be “constitutionally ineligible” to be vice president because, should she have to step into the presidency, she might not meet the Constitution’s Article II requirement that this country’s chief executive be a “natural born” citizen.
Jenna Ellis, who appears frequently these days on cable television as a “senior legal adviser” to the Trump campaign, quickly embraced this nontroversy, retweeting a link to Eastman’s article and later declaring Harris’s eligibility an “open question.” So we are left to assume that the president’s reelection campaign is on board with this line of inquiry, which is reminiscent of President Trump’s own leadership of the “birther” movement when it was first launched against Obama.
Harris is the daughter of immigrants. Her father (from Jamaica) and her mother (from India) were not citizens at the time of her birth in 1964. A birth that — Have I mentioned this? Stay with me here, because this is important — happened in Oakland, Calif., which was then and is now in the United States of America. That means Harris was a U.S. citizen from the first second of her life.
The theoretical and esoteric question of whether first-generation Americans are eligible to be president is booted around from time to time in law-professor circles.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Natural Born Citizen. You say it has no meaning at all? That’s what Congress said in order to legitimize McCain and Obama. Why, then, would it have been included? Perhaps you want it to mean that the candidate must be a citizen who was not born by Caesarean Section? That would need a rationale that has not been enunciated by anyone else yet.
What is the difference between a”citizen” at time of ratification(constitution); and “natural born citizen”? Because there is a difference, the constitution is telling us so. So what’s the difference between the two standards?
That simply not true. The parents don't enter in to it. never did. If she was born in this country, and she was, then she is eligible.
There was no "redaction". A non-binding resolution was passed expressing the opinion that McCain was eligible. It was done because some people raised questions and Congress believed it to be true. Congress can't modify the Constitution by passing a resolution.
"If non citizen parents does not disqualify under the NB clause than the clause was meaningless."
Not at all meaningless. It means that an immigrant from another country can't move here, gain citizenship, and become President. Think Arnold Schwarzenegger. That's what it has always meant, and what it was intended to mean.
It’s time to get SCOTUS to make a definitive ruling on this.
The United States came into existence at ratification. It follows that nobody then alive had been born in the US. Without the exception of "citizen at time of ratification" nobody would have been eligible for the next 35 years.
I did not. I explained the meaning in a prior post.
Which is WHY there was a specific exemption in the Constitution for those who were already around when the country was born.
Nope. That is not the law.
So what is the law? Please cite it.
agreed and a long term one
It's very unlikely that anyone with standing would ever be nutty enough to take it to court. But if it ever happens there is no serious doubt about what the ruling would be. This isn't really a serious legal question.
That’s what I just said.
That is your opinion. Held by very few.
You have that backwards. The claim was that both parents must be citizens. I said there is no such law. The proper response is not to ask me to cite a non-existent law. It's to ask someone to cite the law requiring citizenship of the parents.
A proper interpretation of Constitutional language isn't a serious legal question? lol You're not a serious person.
I knew you couldn’t cite the law. You’re the one who said “that’s not the law.” If you weren’t a clown you would cite the law you claim to know all about.
“That citizenship of her parents has nothing to do with her eligibility.”
***************************************************
Because she was born in the US?
What about children of foreign embassy staff who are born in the US... are THEY “natural born citizens” eligible to run for the presidency when they become of age and meet the other requirements? And, if not, why not?
This is directly from the Jamaican Constitution. PDF available here...https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Jamaica_2011.pdf. Note the first clause of section 3C.
3C. Citizenship by descent
Every person born outside Jamaica shall become a citizen of Jamaica. on the sixth day of August, 1962, in the case of a person born before that
date; or
b. on the date of his birth, in the case of a person born on or after the sixth day
of August, 1962,
if, at that date, his father or mother is a citizen of Jamaica by birth, descent or
registration by virtue of marriage to a citizen of Jamaica.
You are correct in saying that they were not ruling on NBC for POTUS eligibility. They only said that he was a 14th amendment citizen. But in the previous ruling of Minor, they took pains to state there was no doubt that she was an NBC, which they did not do in Wong Kim Ark. That is exactly why a specific ruling on Article II is necessary for clarification.
“So? Article II doesn’t say anything about the citizenship of parents either.”
The constitution is NOT a dictionary. The only term defined in it is treason. The other phrases such as “well regulated” in amendment number 2 had a different meaning to the framers that today’s ill educated gun grabbers assume.
“That is not what Wong Kim Ark says.”
I think that you had better read that decision again, if you ever did.
According to the Obama precedent, natural born citizenship required at least one American citizen parent. It appears with Kamala Harris neither parent needs to be a citizen, just at least one legal alien?
Unfortunately the term “citizenship” is used incorrectly by the media, the democrats (probably on purpose) and now republicans.
What is your definition of a “path to citizenship”?
What is their definition?
My definition is “citizenship” is something you can apply for after having lived in the US (as a legal resident) for I think at least 5 years. Citizenship has never been required to obtain in order to be a legal immigrant. However, you cannot vote without citizenship.
You cannot force an immigrant to apply for citizenship. It’s their choice.
I agreed with Ted Cruz who did not want to allow DACA people citizenship or voting rights.
Too many politicians confuse the terms “legal resident” with the term “American citizen”.
Ok, so your view is that if the person born here has, at the time of their birth, foreign or non citizen parents; that person is then “natural” born, even having potential / real citizenship rights to a different country?
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