Posted on 01/16/2016 5:15:49 PM PST by John Valentine
I shall show that the Constitution contemplates two types of Citizen: those that acquire their citizenship at birth and those who acquire their Citizenship at a later time. The first are referred to in the Constitution as 'natural born' and the second is a class of citizen not specifically named but implied and are those we consider 'naturalized citizens.'
The word 'citizen' including derivative forms appears only eleven times in the Constitution. We shall look at each instance and derive what is possible from each usage and instance. By the end, I hope to have exhaustively shown that within the 'four corners' of the Constitution, two and only two types or classes of citizen are identified or implied: citizens by birth and citizens by naturalization. There is no third subset of citizen to be differentiated from among the two classes of citizen identified or implied in the Constitution.
Instance 1: Article I, Section 2, Clause 2
No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.
This clause establishes three requirements for eligibility to membership in the Untied States House of Representative. They are:
1. Age of at least 25 years
2. A citizen of the United States for at least 7 years
3. An inhabitant of the state from which elected
Notice, please, that the citizenship requirement requires fewer years than does the age requirement. This fact requires acceptance of the notion that an individual can become a citizen at some time long after being born, and implies things about citizenship: first that individuals can be citizens, and second that there can be a time in the life of the individual before the individual became a citizen.
This is important: there is nothing in this clause that says or implies anything about citizenship by birth.
Instance 2: Article I, Section 2, Clause 3
No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.
This clause establishes three requirements for eligibility to membership in the Untied States Senate. They are:
1. Age of at least 30 years
2. A citizen of the United States for at least 9 years
3. An inhabitant of the state from which elected
Notice, please, that the citizenship requirement again requires fewer years than does the age requirement. This fact requires acceptance of the notion that an individual can become a citizen at some time long after being born, and implies things about citizenship: first that individuals can be citizens, and second that there can be a time in the life of the individual before the individual became a citizen.
This is important: there is nothing in this clause that says or implies anything about citizenship by birth.
Instances 3 and 4: Article II, Section 1, Clause 5
No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
This clause establishes three requirements for eligibility for service as President of the Untied States. They are:
1. Age of at least 35 years
2. A natural born citizen of the United States or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution
3. Resident within the United States for at least 14 years
Notice here that a different citizenship requirement is established: in fact, two alternative requirements. We need not concern ourselves with the second, which concerns the Framer's generation and has no application to anyone alive today.
As to the first we see that the citizenship requirement has no specific requirement for its duration. Instead, it refers to a citizenship deriving from the circumstances of birth.
This is a distinctly different citizenship requirement than those for the House of Representatives or Senate. The citizenship requirements for the House of Representatives and Senate could encompass the same class of citizen contemplated by the requirement for Presidential eligibility. We do know that historically individuals have served both in the Senate and as President so the requirements cannot be mutually exclusive.
Logically, we can conclude that the citizenship requirement for eligibility to the Presidency would also be sufficient to establish eligibility for the House of Representatives and Senate.
Thus far there are two classes of citizen established or implied by the language of the Constitution: (1) a class of citizen (natural born) which is derived by the circumstances of birth and which suffices to establish the citizenship component for eligibility for membership in the House of Representatives and Senate, and for service as President, and (2) another class of citizenship which does not depend on the circumstances of birth and can be acquired many years after the birth of an individual and which suffices to establish the citizenship component for eligibility for membership in the House of Representatives and Senate, but not for service as President.
For clarity, going forward I will refer to these two classes of citizen as follows:
As to the first class, these are 'natural born'
As to the second class, these are 'naturalized'
This is important: Thus far there is no third class of citizenship discussed, implied or established within the four corners of the Constitution.
Instances 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9: Article III, Section 2, Clause 5
The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;—to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;—to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;—to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;—to Controversies between two or more States,— between a State and Citizens of another State,—between Citizens of different States,—between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.
This clause does not establish a further class of citizen. As for the first four instances mentioned in this clause, these by implication refer to the classes of citizen mentioned in Article 1, Section 2, Clause 2 and in Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3; that is, those mentioned above as natural born or naturalized. As for the fifth instance, this refers to a citizens of a foreign State and therefore not relevant to this discussion.
This is important: Nothing in this clause references or establishes a third class of citizenship.
Instances 10 and 11: Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1
The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.
This clause, too, does not establish a further class of citizen, and the two instances mentioned in this clause, by implication refer to the classes of citizen mentioned in Article 1, Section 2, Clause 2 and in Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3; that is those mentioned above as natural born or naturalized.
Thus we have exhausted every mention of the word citizen and all its derivative forms, plural, etc. that are found in the Constitution of the United States.
It is demonstrated that there are only two classes of citizen established within the Articles, Sections and Clauses of the Constitution.
These classes are:
1. natural born
2. naturalized
All citizens must belong to one of these classes. If a citizen is not naturalized only one other possibility has been identified: natural born. All citizens are either naturalized or natural born; there is not other possibility.
Obviously, this analysis will categorize any citizen acquiring citizenship by birth as natural born. Some argue that only SOME citizens acquiring citizenship by birth are to be classed as natural born. They claim that other citizens acquiring citizenship by the circumstances of their birth are a subset of naturalized citizen.
But, all such arguments must be based on suppositions, presumptions and hypotheses that are extraneous to the Constitution itself, for as I have exhaustively shown, the Constitution itself creates no such category of citizen.
I also submit that unless the Constitution is inherently impossible of interpretation or understanding based on its own terms, such extraneous references must not be permitted, or may sometimes be permitted with little weight as set against the Constitution’s own clear provisions.
I submit that all the fevered and tortured bending and twisting, and all the references to this and that while perhaps entertaining are essentially nothing more than a diversion.
The Constitution itself is clear. It establishes two classes of citizen; those that have become citizens through the process of naturalization, and those who are citizens by birth, that is the natural born citizens.
There is no third class of citizen.
“Cruz was born with citizenship based on the law at the time of his birth. That makes him a natural born citizen.”
The fact that Ted Cruz acquired U.S. citizenship by the statutory law of the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1952 precludes any possibility of his citizenship being a form of natural born citizenship. Ted Cruz was naturalized at birth by the naturalization act, which is a statutory law and not by the Law of Nature which is what the “natural” is in the phrase natural born citizen.
Correct. That's the bottom line. And no US court will ever rule that a person who was a US citizen at birth is not a natural born citizen. It simply makes no sense.
Someone who is a US citizen at birth has not been naturalized, and thus they are natural born.
All else is obfuscation.
Words have meanings.... Natural, Naturalized, Native. Neither is interchangeable with the other.
In Rogers v. Bellei, 401 U.S. 815 (1971), Mr. Bellei was a US citizen who was born in Italy. His mother was a US citizen, his father was Italian.
Mr. Cruz and Mr. Bellei have identical birth circumstance for purposes of analysis, although Mr. Bellie's father never resided in the US - totally irrelevant factoid, but it is a potential difference in a different case.
Citizenship granted to Mr. Cruz and Mr. Bellei arises under slightly different statutes. As noted in opening, Mr. Bellei was a US citizen, as is Mr. Cruz. Under the Act of Congress that applied to Bellei, he had to reside in the US for certain number of years before he reached a certain age. It was a further condition, to maintain the US citizenship that he obtained at birth.
Mr. Bellei did not satisfy the conditions enumerated in the act of Congress, which created the issue that lead to the case. Mr. Bellei lost his citizenship, and sued to get it back.
If Bellei had been an NBC, his citizenship would not be subject to an Act of Congress, and could not have been stripped. The case would not exist.
The case was decided 5-4, turning on the meaning of "in", in the 14th amendment phrase "born or naturalized in the United States." Obviously, Bellei was not born in the US.
The majority said that Bellei was naturalized in Italy, not in the US. And so, it was not unconstitutional to strip him of his citizenship. The dissent felt this literal reading was wring, and "in the United states" should be read as "anywhere in the world."
The case is loaded with historical reference and at one point literally says "Bellei, as a naturalized American ..."
Don't take my word for it. I linked the case above. Correct me where I am wrong, or admit this is the was SCOTUS views citizenship acquired solely by operation of an Act of Congress. Silence is approval.
The paperwork is not relevant. Only the fact that Ted Cruz acquired U.S. citizenship by the authority of the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1952 that authorized Ted Cruz to be naturalized at birth, with or without documentation.
I want to clear up your confusion, if there is any. Obviously citizenship by birth is not the same as the circumstances of birth, and I never made any attempt to make them equivalent.
In fact you might combine them to say “citizenship by the circumstances of birth”.
Does that help?
Well done, Cboldt.
About a week ago, you posted a link to this case, and I read the entire case, and the majority and dissent opinions.
Got an education—thanks.
“Yep... and if the framers had intended the president to be “NATIVE bornâ€..... they were smart enough to say that.”
They did so on occasion by referring to them as a citizen in some cases and native in other cases.
This is entirely incorrect. When you say 'naturalized at birth' you are uttering an oxymoron. Citizenship by naturalization is never conferred at birth.
I think you are allowing your thinking to be confused the the name of the Act you are quoting. As a matter of law, the titles of acts have no bearing on their actual content.
I’m not trying to have it both ways. Those who keep watering down the natural born requirement want it both ways.
Rubio supporters tell us that it doesn’t matter who his parents were, as long as he was born in the country. The Cruz people tell us that it doesn’t matter whether he was born in the country, or who his father was, as long as his mother was born in the country.
And most Republicans can’t even see the destruction that is being wrought by all of this continued erosion of constitutional standards.
The Foreign Affairs manual also says the following.
7 FAM 1131.6-3 Not Citizens by “Naturalization”
(CT:CON-479; 08-19-2013)
Section 101(a)(23) INA (8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(23)) provides that the term “naturalization” means “the conferring of nationality of a state upon a person after birth, by any means whatsoever.” Persons who acquire U.S. citizenship at birth by birth abroad to a U.S. citizen parent or parents who meet the applicable statutory transmission requirements are not considered citizens by naturalization.
If the framers intended being born on the soil to be a requirement they would have said "natural native born". But that is not what they said.
He showed the relevant “paperwork”: his birth certificate and his mother’s birth certificate. The first proved who is mother was, the second proved she was a citizen. Thus he was,automatically a citizen at birth by operation of law. The consular report is recommended by the law, but does not bring citizenship into existence. In the case of Sen. Cruz, birth did.
That rule only applies in your back yard. It doesn’t apply in a court of law or any states of the union. Sounds good, though.
“I guess what makes sense to me is the example of a child of a U.S ambassador to a foreign country who is born in that foreign county. I would think that child would be considered a “natural born citizen.”
Yes, but only because ancient law and the ancient law of England said the children of Royalty, diplomats, and others sojourning in the foreign domain of a foreign sovereign were under the protection of diplomatic immunity and therefore were not subject to the requirement of local allegiance to the foreign sovereign. They, instead, remained under the allegiance to their own sovereign, despite their presence in the foreign domain. Prior to the English Naturalization Act of 1541, common English subjects born or present in a foreign domain were subject to a temporary and local allegiance to the foreign sovereign as what is described as an alien in amity (an alien in friendship). Such a child was born an alien to England and was not accepted by England as an English subject or with a duty of allegiance to the English sovereign. The English Naturalization Act of 1541 changed that situation by granting persons born abroad in a foreign sovereignty certain but not all of the rights of an English subject, provided such conditions as having an English father were met. Nonetheless, such a person was still alien born and naturalized at birth in a way that would be regarded as a natural born subject in some but not all respects.
That paragraph in the Foreign Affairs manual is deceptive. The second sentence is a claim with no foundation.
And it was added very recently by the Obama people.
I had a detailed discussion two days ago with an experienced former Foreign Service officer on that exact issue just two days ago.
“An anchor baby is a natural born citizen.”
No way possible. The citizenship is acquired by the authority of the Immigration and Naturalization Act that which authorizes the child to be naturalized at birth. You cannot naturalize a natural born citizen.
New tagline.
One means is to pass an Act of Congress that says something like "all persons born in those islands [Virgin Islands] on or after February 25, 1927, and subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, are declared to be citizens of the United States at birth." 8 USC 1406. Notice any reference to citizenship of parents? Any application for citizenship, test, oath? Are they NBC or naturalized? One or the other, which is it?
I suggest you recalibrate your obfuscation detector.
Wait, had to add one word ...
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