Posted on 04/01/2010 9:08:40 AM PDT by Seizethecarp
The following discussion assumes President Obama was born in Hawaii and is a United States citizen.
The purpose of this article is to highlight judicial and historical evidence suggesting that a "natural born citizen" must be born in the United States to parents who are citizens. By that definition, Obama is not eligible to be president. Therefore, his presidency and official administrative acts remain subject to being rendered void by the Supreme Court.
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
None of this nonsense about the parentage is going to be considered by the Court.
I understand that you are offended by the anchor baby president hypothetical--so am I. So what? The remedy for that is to amend the Constitution. Because that is the law, little though we like it.
There is a nice clear record proving that he was born in Kenya--all that is required is to get it before a judge who has jurisdiction on a claim that is justiciable. And his birth in Kenya makes him ineligible to act as President so you ought to be able to do that by direct challenge to the consequence of an act required by the Constitution to be taken by the President.
Sure, Mr. God.
This is my interest in the issue: regardless of Obambi's eligibility, this whole question has demonstrated that there is no adequate procedure to vouchsafe the Constitution's requirement that a president be a natural born citizen.
The problem with the existing procedures is that they don't leave you with any clear procedural path on which to proceed to challenge the finding. If not before, it should have been available to challenge Cheney's signature on the certificate that Obama was elected. But you can't see how to get that into court.
In process at the moment is an effort to enact statutes at the state level requiring the chief election officer of the state (usually the Secretary of State) to confirm eligibility before putting the candidate on the ballot.
The problem with Dorifrio's proceeding on the parentage historical citizenship issues from Vitell is that those arguments don't have any legal merit. And if you lose a case on the basis of that argument, it will then been argued to a Secretary of State who seeks to disqualify Obama on a reelection effort as a bar to disqualification.
People need to recognize that Obama has very capable lawyers who are strategizing how to avoid the successful ballot challenge who see this as the way to success.
Only in the imaginations of birthers who must draw colorful, convoluted readings of these decisions from which to base their arguments.
To the rest of us, Kim Wong Ark is pretty clear.
bump
It's not hypothetical. It's your assertion of what the constitution stands for. Kids born on US soil to two non-citizen parents, then moved to the parents' native land and raised there, is constitutionally qualified for the presidency. You find that to be an effect of the 14th amendment.
Your contention that "Any third generation person born in America to two parents who were born in America [and grandfather was a Euro citizen] is a dual citizen" has got to be an April Fools joke.
There are probably a variety of reasons, but they all boil down to indifference in this case to the constitutional requirement. The only "respectable" challenge that I've seen is Andrew McCarthy's comments that it was irresponsible of Congress to blow off the dual citizenship admission, without so much as a "how do you do."
“I’m married to a foreign citizen and father to our son.”
Now I understand why you are a proponent of anybody can be president.
You have a child who is an American citizen, and who is ineligible to ever be POTUS. It’s personal.
The Senate adopted a resolution covering McCain. Naturally, that resolution put LOTS of weight on the fact that both his parents were citizens, and NO weight on the location of his birth.
Actually, my son is perfectly eligible as the current occupant of the White House clearly demonstrates.
This is why amateurs shouldn't cite case law, they invariably get it wrong.
You clipped but a sentence from Ark that is taken from a citation of Minor v. Happersett used by the opinion's author to address an earlier opinion by Justice Miller surrounding the Slautherhouse cases as they relate to the 14th, and is not part of the legal holding. Moreover, earlier in that same majority opinion, the author writes this when tackling the origin of the definition of "natural-born"...
"It thus clearly appears that, by the law of England for the last three centuries, beginning before the settlement of this country and continuing to the present day, aliens, while residing in the dominions possessed by the Crown of England, were within the allegiance, the obedience, the faith or loyalty, the protection, the power, the jurisdiction of the English Sovereign, and therefore every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign State or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born."
and more later in the opinion...
"The later modifications of the rule in Europe rest upon the constitutions, laws or ordinances of the various countries, and have no important bearing upon the interpretation and effect o the Constitution of the United States. The English Naturalization Act of 33 Vict. (1870) c. 14, and the Commissioners' Report of 1869, out of which it grew, both bear date since the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution; and, as observed by Mr. Dicey, that act has not affected the principle by which any person who, whatever the nationality of his parents, is born within the British dominions, acquires British nationality at birth and is a natural-born British subject"
and finally, the holding found in the last paragraph...
"The evident intention, and the necessary effect, of the submission of this case to the decision of the court upon the facts agreed by the parties were to present for determination the single question stated at the beginning of this opinion, namely, whether a child born in the United States, of parent of Chinese descent, who, at the time of his birth, are subjects of the Emperor of China, but have a permanent domicil and residence in the United States, and are there carrying on business, and are not employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under the Emperor of China, becomes at the time of his birth a citizen of the United States. For the reasons above stated, this court is of opinion that the question must be answered in the affirmative."
Now, what does that all mean with respect to young Mr. Ark's ability to become the President of the United States. Well, if you want to know what the dissenters believed to be the practical consequence of the majority's opinion with respect to Presidential eligibility, one only needs to read this paragraph from Justice Fuller lamenting the very reality created by the majority's opinion...
"Considering the circumstances surrounding the framing of the Constitution, I submit that it is unreasonable to conclude that "natural-born citizen" applied to everybody born within the geographical tract known as the United States, irrespective of circumstances, and that the children of foreigners, happening to be born to them while passing through the country, whether of royal parentage or not, or whether of the Mongolian, Malay or other race, were eligible to the Presidency, while children of our citizens, born abroad, were not."
Fuller hates it and thinks its unreasonable to conclude as such, but he recognizes this is the conclusion of and the resulting legal reality created by, the majority opinion in Ark.
Not a joke at all, I have the second passport to prove it.
And by the way, it is hypothetical--we haven't yet had it happen so we haven't yet seen a court rule. When we do, bet that the court will hold the kid "natural born".
Maj. Cook was a reserve officer and could have his challenge to Obama deemed to be a retraction of his voluntary offer of deployment.
In case you missed it, the just announced challenge to Obama’s proofs of eligibility by Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin, D.O., an active duty officer, won't be able to be dismissed on that basis. If subjected to court martial, Lakin appears to intend to put the burden of proof on Obama in a quo warranto filing.
You can't have it both ways, one way having Wong Kim Ark using the 14th amendment to hold that anchor babies are "natural born citizens" for presidential qualification purposes, and the other way that no US Court has heard the issue.
I think the issue has never been before the Court, and that it is plain error to read Wong Kim Ark for the proposition that anchor babies are constitutionally qualified. But you opened with the remark that dual citizenship is irrelevant to the question of constitutional qualification, which strikes me as an entrenched position on the other side.
Anyway, I agree that the Courts won't hear the issue. I also predicted that Congress would shirk ITS constitutional duty of challenging and deciding qualifications, by pretending the issue was already decided (by magic, I suppose) at the time the electoral votes are counted.
Your having a second passport, one issued by a country other than the US, is not dispositive of your assertion that "Any third generation person born in America to two parents who were born in America [and grandfather was a Euro citizen] is a dual citizen."
Many US citizens born in the US were and children of [both parents] naturalized US citizens. The heritage before the parents becomes irrelevant for citizenship purposes.
So, describe, with particularity, the circumstances that lead to your dual citizenship at birth. One of your parents was not a US citizen, I take it. But if both of your parents were born in the US, under Wong Kim Ark, they are at least citizens, even if not qualified to be president, regardless of the citizenship of their parents.
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