Posted on 01/16/2016 5:15:49 PM PST by John Valentine
At your leisure. Sometimes I disappear for extended periods, but I reply to civil inquiries that I think are taken in good faith. You are on good footing for the time being.
All right then. I shall assume for the purposes of our continued discussion that you are well read WRT SCOTUS citizenship cases. I will catch up with you as soon as I next encounter you at FR.
The only thing I wanted to close out was your contention about those three paragraphs in Bellei, which cities Wong Kim Ark for a proposition that shouldn't be contentious, unless you want to play pedant or sophist. The Wong Kim Ark cite reduces to something like "The naturalization rule that applies to Bellei isn't found in the 14th amendment."
So, you tell me how to adjust that (if necessary to complete your argument) and read the other two paragraphs for your proposition, "that Congress does have the inherent power to define who is naturally a citizen when such an individual is not explicitly covered by the 14th Amendment."
After that, we're done.
I suggest just replying in this thread, to post 165 where I challenged your contention. That makes a tidy record for reference and our fellow readers.
I don't get many posts to me (shun ping lists), so I think I see all of them. I'll see yours, I'm pretty sure. Anytime you feel like it, no hurry. Next year for all I care. ;-)
Eligibility of a candidate can be challenged on a state by state basis, typically through the state’s board of elections. Cruz has already been challenged for ballot access in New Hampshire and the Secretary of State rejected that challenge. Their rejection of the challenge is instructive. They only cared that prima fascia eligibility was established. They didn’t want to deal with constitutional interpretation. They viewed that as someone else’s job.
And at the federal level, because alternate means exist to “adjudicate” the problem, and those means are part of the political structure, Congress, the electoral college, etc., federal courts are strongly inclined to treat presidential eligibility as a political question and pass that buck to anyone else they can find.
See here for further reading, if you are interested:
http://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1087&context=mlr_fi
Peace,
SR
Just a cursory review shows this about Cruz Sr., not Senator Ted Cruz.
Cruz decided to move to New Orleans to take a new job, which is where he met his second wife, Eleanor Darragh, a computer programmer from Delaware, who was also working for an oil company. They married, moved to Calgary, Alberta, and in late 1970 had their first and only child, Rafael Edward Cruz. They weren’t in Canada long, choosing to move to Houston, where they continued to work for oil companies. He became a Canadian citizen while working there, he says, but it never felt like home. Back in Texas, he became a permanent legal resident, and it wasn’t until 2005 that he formally became a U.S. citizen.
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/356934/rise-rafael-cruz-robert-costa
Change your definition of naturalize. I'll try to help. To naturalize it to take a non-citizen and turn him into a citizen by any means at all. This is done by Act of Congress.
Cruz was naturalized automatically. Congress has passed some laws that say "if you are born 'this way', you are a citizen-at-birth. Period." Everybody born in the Virgin Islands, to legal residents of the Virgin Islands, is a US citizen at birth by operation of an act of Congress. This rule does not require the parents to be citizens of the US. If two foreigners are living in the Virgin Islands, and they have a baby, the baby is a citizen of the US at birth. Automatic.
Congress can naturalize anybody or any group it wants to, on any or no conditions. It's power is plenary, unlimited. Well, it can give, but it can't take away.
Congress can also require a person to "check in," or be admitted as part of a quota, or take a test (or not), an oath (or not), renounce citizenship elsewhere (or not). Again, Congress can make whatever rules here that it wants to.
The popular view of "naturalized" follows this set of laws, the ones that have making an application, getting approved, waiting, taking a test, renouncing past allegiance, and taking an oath. But Congress could do away with all that pomp and circumstance and still confer citizenship. It isn't the pomp and circumstance that confers citizenship, it is the act of congress that does.
The only way Cruz is a citizen is by act of Congress. Take the act away, he's Canadian through and through.
Spread it around. I'm geting weary, and will soon go mute on the subject.
I too am weary of the subject
Thanks for the good insights
My practice here, believe it or not, is sparse posting with extended periods of absence. I usually read, but just as a voyeur. To much stupidity goes on here. Sometimes sad, often funny, usually wrong, reliably entertaining.
I pop up when an issue catches my fancy. Cruz eligibility and Waco Biker Shootout are the only two subjects I play around in.
And even then, my style is to study (outside references)/talk (here) in order to improve my grasp on reality. I learn better that way, and other people benefit. Once I've got it sussed out in my mind (right or wrong), I stop posting. Said my piece, back to voyeur.
So, if I make a post that is useful, others have to spread it around. I'm content to lets it sit where I left it.
Thanks I gave it a try with a search of FR, and FR came back with “Nothing matched your criteria.”
I tried a search engine, one of the results was:
Obama Presidential Eligibility - An Introductory Primer
Last revised: June 5, 2009
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2275574/posts
Is this the FR post you had in mind? If so, I tried the link in the article, and it only took me to the current FAM we’re already quoting. I’m guessing you had another link in mind, or the early version/s of the FAM are in one of the many posts?
I finally found a back way into an archived copy of the Department of State website/s for the period 1997-2000 not on the Internet Archive which has working links, but I found no links for the FAM. You have to go through the ERC to get there. See:
http://dosfan.lib.uic.edu/ERC/index.html
I did find the FAM on a 2001 snapshot of the State website on the Internet Archive (WayBackMachine). The wording of the paragraphs we have been discussing have changed, but not so much substantively. See:
https://web.archive.org/web/20011203045609/http://www.foia.state.gov/masterdocs/07fam/07m1130.pdf
What I really want is the FAM equivalent for 1970-1971 and back to the beginning.
I think FR is in a spitball phase ....I taught for a short while and the 7th grade really stands out in my memory ...I believe it was the hormone level that did it ....I get the feeling FR and maybe the whole country has regressed to the point of 7th grade....it had a distinct smell.
In regard to the New Hampshire Ballot Law Commission it is true that they’re concerned with “dotted i’s and crossed t’s” on the paperwork and that’s it. The statutes regarding the Commission state that it’s decisions are final and not reviewable. The New Hampshire Supreme Court sees it differently. In a case involving the Ballot Law Commission the New Hampshire Supreme Court said “Even assuming the absence of a statutory right of appeal, this court cannot be divested of its power to correct errors of law and other abuses by writ of certiorari... “ Malcolm Tink Taylor v. Ballot Law Commission, 118 N.H. 671 (1978), accessed at http://law.justia.com/cases/new-hampshire/supreme-court/1978/78-241-0.html
In regard to eligibility being a political question, for reasons previously stated that just ridiculous. Courts may be “disinclined” to handle a case nevertheless it is their duty. The role of Congress is ministerial, they count electors’ votes. Only in a special circumstance may they exercise any other power (Amend. 12). In no circumstance do they possess authority to determine who is and who is not eligible for the Presidency. Electors vote. In no circumstance do they possess authority to determine who is and who is not eligible for the Presidency.
One more thing. When I said “after that we’re done.” I meant we’ll have exhausted this argument, not that I’m of a mind to quit all discussion with you.
The campaign claims Darragh went to Canada in 1967. When did Rafael go to Canada? When did he become a Can. cit.
According to your post they married and then went to Canada. For sake of discussion let’s say Rafael also went in 1967. The earliest he could have become a Can. cit. would have been 1972. He left Canada in 1973. Become a citizen and then leave? (Darragh and “Ted” returned in 1974). Why would the father become a Canadian citizen and not the mother?
My only point is there should be no murkiness, yet there is, and it’s laughed off. Meanwhile he continues to make ludicrous assertions.
You may find it ridiculous. I find it a practical reality. To undo the current evolution of the political question doctrine, you would need to force the issue, perhaps an Article 5 amendment. But Cruz has virtually no chance of being disqualified under the present process. And he shouldn’t be. He’s not the foreign threat the framers of the Constitution were concerned about. No one born and raised American was the target of the NBC clause. That’s what is truly ridiculous.
Peace,
SR
He is a citizen by statute, i.e. naturalized. The fact is, the foreign-born children of citizens have always required naturalization.
A person born out of the jurisdiction of the United States can only become a citizen by being naturalized
either by
treaty, as in the case of the annexation of foreign territory,
or by
authority of congress, exercised
either by
declaring certain classes of persons to be citizens, as in the enactments conferring citizenship upon foreign-born children of citizens,
or by
enabling foreigners individually to become citizens by proceedings in the judicial tribunals, as in the ordinary provisions of the naturalization acts.
U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 702-703
“I would argue and I have argued that there is nothing in the statutes dealing with nationality that acts to amend or alter the plain words of the Constitution.”
There is so the moment you try to act to claim a statute can govern who is and is not a natural born citizen. The Constitution has no authority to make or unmake a person a natural born citizen. Only God’s nature can do so, just as the right of free speech, and the right of self defense are natural and inherent rights that a person is born with and which the Bill of Rights cannot grant, only protect and defend. This is why the naturalization of persons as naturalized citizens is what is known as a legal fiction. Since the Constitution has no power to make or unmake a natural born citizen, the only power granted to Congress was the power to “establish an uniform Rule of naturalization that grants an alien some but not all of the rights of an actual citizen, whether the alien is automatically naturalized at birth or personally naturalized after birth.
I don’t know if you have ever heard of this, but occasionally Congress will pass a statute that is quite out of alignment with the Constitution.
Good luck with that.
For me, I prefer a more rational approach.
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