“What does it mean to be a natural born citizen?
Most legal experts contend it means someone is a citizen from birth and doesn’t have to go through a naturalization process to become a citizen.
If that’s the definition, then Cruz is a natural born citizen by being born to an American mother and having her citizenship at birth. The Congressional Research Service, the agency tasked with providing authoritative research to all members of Congress, published a report after the 2008 election supporting the thinking that a ‘natural born’ citizenship means citizenship held at birth.
There are many legal and historical precedents to strongly back up this argument, experts have said.
Those precedents were the subject of a recent op-ed in the Harvard Law Review by two former solicitor generals of opposing parties, Neal Katyal and Paul Clement, who worked for Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, respectively. They wrote that ‘natural born’ had a longstanding definition dating back to colonial times.
British common law recognized that children born outside of the British Empire remained subjects, and were described by law as natural born, Katyal and Clement wrote.
The framers, of course, would have been intimately familiar with these statutes and the way they used terms like natural born, since the (British) statutes were binding law in the colonies before the Revolutionary War, they said.
Additionally, the first Congress of the United States passed the Naturalization Act of 1790, just three years after the Constitution was written, which stated that children born abroad to U.S. citizens were, too, natural born citizens. Many members of the inaugural Congress were also authors of the Constitution.â€
Do you usually let others do your thinking for you or just occasionally?
Of course, their conclusions are completely at odds with what all of the experts who were alive back then said at the time but keep on with your fantasizing. For example,no less a personage than George Mason, in the Virginia ratifying convention, said that American law is not English common law.
Conveniently, these so called experts lean on British Common law for their expertise and totally ignore Vattel’s Law of nations which is documented as having great importance to the Framers. The Declaration of independence uses Vattel’s wording so why is Vattel completely ignored in those who wish to shout BRITISH COMMON LAW. Do you think that the Framers, just finished with throwing out the KING and his SUBJECTS would start a new country mimicking British law? I do not! British “citizens”were SUBJECT TO THE KING. Vattel’s Law of Nations defines Natural Born Citizens as born of TWO parents BOTH Citizens of the country and Born on the soil of the country. America did not have far flung colonies throughout the world as the British EMPIRE did. The brand new United States of America had its own definition of natural born citizen as being one born with NO OTHER ALLEGIANCE.
Additionally, the first Congress of the United States passed the Naturalization Act of 1790, just three years after the Constitution was written, which stated that children born abroad to U.S. citizens were, too, natural born citizens
........................................................
Which was repealed and rewritten in 1795 when the error about natural born was corrected.
Good argument. In my mind it’s probably more likely that, if anything, the Founders would likely default more toward jus sanguine than soli, as evidenced by the need of the 14th Amendment to grant full citizenship to blacks in light of the Dredd Scott decision.
“What does it mean to be a natural born citizen?”
A natural born citizen is a person who is born with allegiance to the sovereign United States of America and who acquires no allegiance to a foreign sovereign at birth or after birth.
“Most legal experts contend it means someone is a citizen from birth and doesn’t have to go through a naturalization process to become a citizen.”
It is a false statement to allege it is known who “most legal experts” are, much less allege to know what they mean when using the term, natural born citizen. No competent survey has ever been conducted to determine such statistics.
“If that’s the definition, then Cruz is a natural born citizen by being born to an American mother and having her citizenship at birth.”
Given the indisputable fact that Ted Cruz acquired U.S. citizenship by using the authority of the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1952, it is also indisputable that Ted Cruz was naturalized at birth by that Act. Naturalized U.S. citizens are by legal definition not and cannot become natural born citizens.
“The Congressional Research Service, the agency tasked with providing authoritative research to all members of Congress, published a report after the 2008 election supporting the thinking that a ‘natural born’ citizenship means citizenship held at birth.”
Natural born citizens do hold citizenship at birth by the authority of Natural Law. Alien born children of a U.S. citizen, meaning children born with allegiance to a foreign sovereign, are naturalized at birth and thereby are persons who are not natural born U.S. citizens, but they are granted by statutory law a nearly equivalent political status as those persons who are an actual natural born citizen.
“There are many legal and historical precedents to strongly back up this argument, experts have said.”
The statement is a baseless and false statement. Historical precedents consistently demonstrate an actual natural born citizen is born without an allegiance to a foreign sovereign.
“Those precedents were the subject of a recent op-ed in the Harvard Law Review by two former solicitor generals of opposing parties, Neal Katyal and Paul Clement, who worked for Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, respectively. They wrote that ‘natural born’ had a longstanding definition dating back to colonial times.
yes, the phrase “natural born” “had a longstanding definition dating back to colonial times.” it is demonstrably not the misrepresentative definition they are using.
“British common law recognized that children born outside of the British Empire remained subjects, and were described by law as natural born, Katyal and Clement wrote.”
Contrary to the erroneous information in United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), the United States developed its own often unique American common law at the same time England and Britain was developing its common law. While they often shared similar conclusions, they also did not share many important conclusion during the same American colonial period. During the Federal period the States and the Federal Government deliberately disavowed adherence to British common law in favor of its own approach relying upon American common law traditions and upon the Law of Nations. The quotation also misrepresents the situation with the children of British fathers born abroad, which was altered by the States and the Federal Government with the State and Federal naturalization statutes. so, the statements are false and deceptive in the extreme.
“The framers, of course, would have been intimately familiar with these statutes and the way they used terms like natural born, since the (British) statutes were binding law in the colonies before the Revolutionary War, they said.”
The colonial legislatures and the King’s governors often conflicted with the interference of the Crown in the colonial naturalization statutes and practices. So, it is false and deceptive for your statement to omit and deny the existence of these Colonial contradictions to the efforts of the Crown to apply the controversial Parliamentary Acts.
“Additionally, the first Congress of the United States passed the Naturalization Act of 1790, just three years after the Constitution was written, which stated that children born abroad to U.S. citizens were, too, natural born citizens.”
That statement is a blatant lie and a fraud. The Naturalization Act of 1790 did not state “that children born abroad to U.S. citizens were, too, natural born citizens.” That is a heinous and too often repeated lie. The Naturalization Act of 1790 authorized the U.S. Government to take a child who was not a natural born citizen and who was born abroad in the allegiance of a foreign sovereign with a father having U.S. citizenship and grant that child a political status, known as naturalization, that was in most, but not all respects, comparable to those enjoyed by actual natural born citizens. This is the same principle of nationality that was used by Parliament when it naturalized the alien born children of English fathers in the Naturalization Act of 1541.
“Many members of the inaugural Congress were also authors of the Constitution.â”
Yes, they were, and they used Vattel’s Law of nations as a guide to drafting the Constitution and the natural born citizen clause as a means of excluding naturalized U.S. citizens only from the Office of the President and Office of the Vice President, whereas English and British statutes excluded naturalized nationals from serving in the Privy Council and most other government and public offices.