Posted on 07/11/2008 6:29:35 AM PDT by reaganaut1
In the most detailed examination yet of Senator John McCain’s eligibility to be president, a law professor at the University of Arizona has concluded that neither Mr. McCain’s birth in 1936 in the Panama Canal Zone nor the fact that his parents were American citizens is enough to satisfy the constitutional requirement that the president must be a “natural-born citizen.”
The analysis, by Prof. Gabriel J. Chin, focused on a 1937 law that has been largely overlooked in the debate over Mr. McCain’s eligibility to be president. The law conferred citizenship on children of American parents born in the Canal Zone after 1904, and it made John McCain a citizen just before his first birthday. But the law came too late, Professor Chin argued, to make Mr. McCain a natural-born citizen.
“It’s preposterous that a technicality like this can make a difference in an advanced democracy,” Professor Chin said. “But this is the constitutional text that we have.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
For the most part, no. That complete extraterritorial status belongs mainly to embassies and consulates and a handful of military bases, and even then the idea of them being "sovereign territory" is really a fiction. They are effectively sovereign territory since the host country can't step foot inside without permission, but they aren't really US soil. If you happened to be born in an embassy, I believe you'd still get a consular report of birth abroad instead of a regular US birth certificate.
The rest of our bases operate under various SOFAs (Status Of Forces Agreements) that give different partial aspects of extraterritoriality, but not complete. It would have been a different story if he had been born in a ship's hospital, as I believe all naval military vessels are considered to be the sovereign territory of their country.
Everyone notice it’s the MSM that brings up the McCain foreign born issue and ignores the obvious bogus Obama birth certificate?
***Yup. They’re worried this is going to break over the weekend so they’re trying to send out the counter-balancing dirt. We’ll see if it breaks. Sunday morning talk shows is where it’s most likely to happen, but I doubt it will happen this weekend.
You are a natural-born citizen if you were born a citizen. If you were born to TWO Americans* in another country, then you are an American.
*I believe they have to have spent some recent years inside the US of A as well (McCain’s parents qualify).
That picture reminds me of something totally off topic. Several years ago on an episode of People’s Court, I saw none other than “Wally Cleaver,” now well into middle age, testifying in a case involving his girlfriend (young enough to be his daughter) in a dispute with her landlord. A real WTF moment.
OMG, you think he has the birth certificate??? It sounds like it, no??
Tx! have you seen post 31?
:)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2040753/posts
Obama and McCain: Citizenship And Eligibility—Legal Issues
The complaint filed in New Hampshire
It is my understanding that there is a complaint currently filed in every state where McCain won the primary. I've only looked at Virginia's and New Hampshire's though.
I’ll post this again.
This is the law when McCain was born. I think it’s pretty clear. He was a citizen right from birth.
2. May 25, 1934 to January 12, 1941
If you were born between May 25, 1934 and January 12, 1941, you acquired U.S. citizenship at birth if both your parents were U.S. citizens and at least one lived in the United States before you were born. You didn’t have to do anything special to keep your U.S. citizenship.
You could also get U.S. citizenship if only one of your parents was a U.S. citizen, as long as that parent lived in the United States at some time. If your U.S. citizenship came from only one parent, you would have been required to reside in the United States for at least two years between the ages of 14 and 28 in order to retain your citizenship. If the one U.S. citizen parent was your father and you were born outside of marriage, the same rules applied if your father legally legitimated you.
This is from FIND LAW
I think the confusion comes from the natural born vs. naturalized citizen, nikos. No one is saying McCain is not a citizen. The assertion is, since McCain was not born in the U.S., or even any land within U.S. jurisdiction, he was therefore naturalized. The legal complaints that are filed in the states McCain won primaries say he only acquired citizenship by jus sanguinis due that both of his parents were U.S. citizens.
McCain’s Certificate of Live Birth issued by the Canal Zone states he was born in “Colon” which is in the Republic of Panama. It was not part of the Canal Zone.
Calpernia,
You are so correct!!!
Thank you.
I think I will now go lie down. I suddenly have a headache.
It is a headache from a good cause anyway! Thank you for your insight.
On the contrary. Thank you for YOUR insight.
The fact that McCain was born in a US Naval Hospital is superfluous to the issue at hand. That such hospital was located in the Canal Zone, which was beyond dispute soverign US soil, is the determining factor.
If you look at any map published before Jimmy Carter decided to give it back, you will see the Canal Zone clearly marked as a United States territory. End of argument.
Then why did Congress later pass a law giving anyone born in the Canal Zone citizenship? That wouldn't be necessary if such people were natural-born.
If "Osama" Obama were born abroad, he would not be a natural born citizen, because his father was not a citizen although his mother was.
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