Firstly, he was born in the naval hospital. There are records and I have seen them. That business about him being born off base is just a lie that has been spread around.
Secondly, Congress doesn't create natural citizens. Their only power is to create naturalized citizens, and their opinions do not matter.
They can claim McCain was or they can claim he wasn't. What congress thinks has absolutely no bearing on what is the true case.
As the correct understanding of "natural born citizen" traces directly to Vattel, and as Vattel specifically says the children born in foreign lands to fathers serving as soldiers for their country are "natural born", I therefore conclude that McCain was a natural born citizen, even though he was a corrupt piece of sh*t who turned against his country in his declining years.
[Reno 89519] Congress addressed this by affirming that he was a Natural Born Citizen because the family was there with the military.[DiogenesLamp] Firstly, he was born in the naval hospital. There are records and I have seen them. That business about him being born off base is just a lie that has been spread around.
Congress did not affirm anything. It was a Senate Resolution. It carries the legal effect of nothing.
McCain could not have been born in a CZ Naval Hospital in 1936. It was built in WW2. You have not seen the records for the non-existent hospital. John McCain never produced a birth certificate and you have not seen that either.
For official documentation of when and where USN Hospitals operated, there is he BUMED Library and Archives Finding Aid. It seems a tad difficult to find online these days, but I have a 2007 copy.
Here is th 1941 Executive Order to build the hospital.
Executive Order 8981—NAVY HOSPITAL AREA, COCO SOLO, CANAL ZONEDecember 17, 1941
EXECUTIVE ORDER 8981
NAVY HOSPITAL AREA, COCO SOLO, CANAL ZONE
December 17, 1941
By virtue of the authority vested in me by section 5 of title 2 of the Canal Zone Code, approved June 19, 1934, and as President of the United States, it is ordered as follows:
SECTION 1. Setting apart of reservation; boundaries. The following- described area of land in the Canal Zone is hereby reserved and set apart as, and assigned to the uses and purposes of, a naval reservation, which shall be known as Navy Hospital Area, Coco Solo, and which shall be under the control and jurisdiction of the Secretary of the Navy, subject to the provisions of section 2 of this order:
Being born on a naval base overseas carries no distinction from being born off base. The base is the sovereign territory of the host nation and we operate under a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA).
At the time McCain was born in 1936, pursuant to the Constitution and Federal law, he was apparently born an alien, whether born in the CZ or elsewhere in Panama. He was declared a citizen by the Act of August 4, 1937. The Act of May 24, 1934 screwed up, as explained below.
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/pan001.asp
Hay-Bunau Treaty, 1903
ARTICLE IIIThe Republic of Panama grants to the United States all the rights, power and authority within the zone mentioned and described in Article II of this agreement and within the limits of all auxiliary lands and waters mentioned and described in said Article II which the United States would possess and exercise if it were the sovereign of the territory within which said lands and waters are located to the entire exclusion of the exercise by the Republic of Panama of any such sovereign rights, power or authority.
"would possess … if it were the sovereign" establishes it was not the sovereign.
The 14th Amendment applied to all those born within the territory and jurisdiction of the United States. McCain was not born within the territory of the United States.
Act of May 24, 1934; 48 Stat. 797, "To amend; the law relative to citizenship and naturalization, and for other purposes, starts out amending Section 1993 of the citizenship law.
"Sec. 1903. Any child hereafter born out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States...."
And Congress showed off its intelligence and logic. They reasoned, if you can call it that, that "out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States" would cover all who were not born "within the territory and jurisdiction of the United States." What they were looking for was "out of the territory or jurisdiction of the United States. They wiffed at the reqired logic.
McCain was born no-man's land outside the territory of the United States, but where the United States exercised jurisdiction as if it were the sovereign. He was born within the jurisdiction of the United States and neither fell within the 14th Amendment, nor the statute law. Looks like he was born an alien in Panama because Congress had a misplaced sense of logic.
The screwup was soon brought to the attention of Congress and they wrote a new Act.
Act of August 4, 1937, 50 Stat. 558, "Relating to the citizenship of certain classes of persons born in the Canal Zone or the Republic of Panama.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House o f Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That any person born in the Canal Zone on or after February 26, 1904, and whether before or after the effective date of this Act, whose father or mother or both at the time of the birth of such person was or is a citizen of the United States, is declared to be a citizen of the United States.SEC. 2. Any person born in the Republic of Panama on or after February 26, 1904, and whether before or after the effective date of this Act, whose father or mother or both at the time of the birth of such person was or is a citizen of the United States employed by the Government of the United States or by the Panama Railroad Company, is declared to be a citizen of the United States.
Approved, August 4, 1937.
The 1934 Act was botched. McCain was born in 1936. The Act of 1937 sort of fixed the problem for everyone not running for President. It appears the question is whether one born an alien can become a natural born U.S citizen retroactively.
Vattel wrote a text book in French called The Law of Nations. The Law of Nations is the archaic term for International Law. No nation answers to International Law when making a domestic decision about its own citizenship laws.