SOURCE: Calgary Sun.
Posted on 01/18/2016 8:21:28 PM PST by SeekAndFind
While the nation's legal scholars differ over the exact meaning of the Constitution's requirement that a person must be a "natural born citizen" to become president, they're unanimous in saying Ted Cruz is wrong about an important point.
"As a legal matter, the question is quite straightforward and settled law," Cruz has said. "People will continue to make political noise about it, but as a legal matter it is quite straightforward.
In fact, the experts say, it is neither settled nor straightforward.
It's not settled -- because the Constitution does not define "natural born," a phrase that appears in the nation's founding document only once.
And though the federal courts have chewed on it from time to time, the U.S. Supreme Court has never officially said what it means.
It's not straightforward -- because at the time the Constitution was written there were different ideas about what the phrase meant and competing legal theories about where the power to confer citizenship came from.
The meaning of the term is so unsettled that scores of constitutional experts have been writing about it in the weeks since Donald Trump made it an issue in the 2016 campaign.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
Bingo!
They are 100% certified hypocrites.
Oh you know that’s coming.
I honestly think a lot of you folks believe that only your fellow Pure Ones are good enough to even vote for the guy.
Yeah, right. Whatever.
According to Ted Cruz’ logic, Barack Obama COULD have been born in Kenya...and still been eligible. I have a serious problem with that.
I guess you missed the anti-Trump vitriol on a daily basis here. People are passionate for their candidate and against their rivals. There is nothing wrong with nastiness. Take a look in the 1800s when candidates used to accuse others of bestiality and incest in campaign posters. what we have today is positively civilized by comparison.
BUT, if you take away the citizen-parent's residency angle, and hold that citizenship passes by blood, Cruz and Obama are situated exactly the same.
Cuba's claim on Cruz was as valid as the US claim. They are exactly the same at the time of his birth.
The law can't predict the life path that any person will take, and it is error to look at a person, now, and assign their allegiance now as their allegiance at birth.
Citizenship is a formulaic body of law. It is ancient law. Vattel and Blackstone were merely learned observers of the law. They do not make the law, they just express their understanding of how it works.
It just happens that citizenship law under the US Constitution flows the same ancient formula that Vattel and Blackstone observed and restated. US citizenship law does not depend on Vattel for force, US citizenship law is it's own, primary source of authority. Vattel, if he were to observe the US, would conclude that the US applies the same ancient formula for citizenship that all other nations do.
Under the ancient, and universally applied rules of citizenship, a natural born citizen is a person born in the nation, of parents who owe no allegiance to any other nation.
Under the US constitution, a natural born citizen is a person born a citizen of any of the states (which is slightly different from being born in the state, and may look to the parents' domicile), of parents who owe no allegiance to any other nation.
Dual citizens are precluded from the office of the presidency, and Obama has usurped that position by act of Congress, which was derelict in not even discussing the ramifications of dual citizenship, and inaction by the courts.
SOURCE: Calgary Sun.
The definition of natural born citizen is something that the Constitution left to Congress, which is made abundantly clear by the Naturalization Act of 1790. That Act specifically provided that certain children born overseas would be considered "natural born citizens."
That law, passed by the very first Congress barely a year after ratification, and signed into law by Washington himself, is the clearest indication we have of the intent of Framers regarding which entity has the authority to define determine who is a " natural born citizen."
That power was give to Congress, and whatever personal views people have regarding divided loyalties or whatever are irrelevant. If a law states the qualifications for being a "natural born citizen" and someone meets those criteria then that's what they are.
Which by law makes him and American citizen.
Ted Cruz was born on December 22nd. 1970. At this time, his citizenship was defined by the Canadian Citizenship Act of 1947. This document clearly states that: A person born after the commencement of this act is a Natural Born Citizen: (a)if he is born in Canada or on a Canadian ship.
You can find the information regarding Natural Born Canadian Citizenship on the second and third pages at the link I provided.
Ever hear of wish in one hand, poop in the other, see which fills fastest?
Your statement here is devoid of any supporting authority. And it's incorrect. As I noted a bit above on this thread:
Under our Constitution, a naturalized citizen stands on an equal footing with the native citizen in all respects save that of eligibility to the Presidency. Luria v. U.S., 231 U.S. 9, 22 (1913)
Naturalized citizens are excluded from the presidency. Native born citizens are citizens by birth who need no naturalization, and thus are "natural born citizens" under the common law and the 14th Amendment. U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S 649, 702 (1898) ("Every person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, becomes at once a citizen of the United States, and needs no naturalization.")
As has been widely recognized and accepted by both our courts and legal commentators throughout our history , "natural born citizen" derives from the English common law "natural born subject," which accepted children as "natural born" who were born within the realm of alien parents. The parents were deemed to owe a temporary allegiance to the sovereign of the realm sufficient to make the offspring a natural born subject. This was true notwithstanding the parent, being still a subject/citizen of his the country of his nationality, may have retained an allegiance to that nation as well.
Our common law was jus soli, and this rule of natural born citizenship was recognized even by John Bingham:
"Who does not know that every person born within the limits of the Republic is, in the language of the Constitution, a natural-born citizen." Rep. Bingham, Cong. Globe, 40th Cong, 2nd Sess, p. 2212 (1869)
What Cong. Bingham says here later became the express finding in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark. Under our Constitution, one is a natural born citizen who is born within the United States to parents who are not foreign diplomats (and who is born at a time and in a place not then under foreign occupation, e.g., New York City from 1776 to 1783).
The scholarly legal commentary affirming this point is too numerous to list. But a few samples:
J.M. Medina, "The Presidential Qualification Clause in This Bicentennial Year: The Need to Eliminate the Natural Born Citizen Requirement," Okla. City U.L Rev. (1987) ("Prior to the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment…[i]t was presumed that the English law of jus soli was incorporated into the law of the several former colonies and then into the Constitution")Jill A.Pryor, "The Natural-Born Citizen Clause and Presidential Eligibility: An Approach for Resolving Two Hundred Years of Uncertainty," 97 Yale L.J. 881, at 881 and n. 2 (1988) ("Native-born citizens are natural born by virtue of the nearly universal principle of jus soli, or citizenship of place of birth");
Black's Law Dictionary, Eighth edition (1999) ("Natural Born Citizenship Clause. The clause of the U.S. Constitution barring persons not born in the United States from the presidency."); James C. Ho, The Heritage Guide to the Constitution 190 (2005) ("[u]nder the longstanding English common-law principle of jus soli, persons born within the territory of the sovereign (other than children of enemy aliens or foreign diplomats) are citizens from birth. Thus, those persons born within the United States are "natural born citizens" and eligible to be President");
Sarah Helene Duggin & Mary Beth Collins, "'Natural Born' in the USA: The Striking Unfairness and Dangerous Ambiguity of the Constitution's Presidential Qualifications Clause and Why We Need to Fix It," 85 B.U. L. Rev. 53, 90-91 (2005) ("United States citizens born to parents subject to United States jurisdiction in one of the fifty states are unquestionably natural born citizens… unless a child's parents are protected by the full immunity extended to foreign diplomats and their families, or they are enemy combatants.") ;
Lawrence Freedman, "An Idea Whose Time Has Come--The Curious History, Uncertain Effect, and Need for Amendment of the 'Natural Born Citizen Requirement for the Presidency," 52 St. Louis U. L.J. 137, 143 (2007)("It is now generally assumed that the term 'natural born' is synonymous with 'native born'") ;
Gabriel J. Chin, "Why Senator John McCain Cannot Be President: Eleven Months and a Hundred Yards Short of Citizenship," 107 Mich. L. Rev. (2008) ("Those born in the United States are uncontroversially natural born citizens" and finding that John McCain was not a natural born citizen).
So insofar as your "of parents who owe no allegiance to any other nation" phrase encompasses more than foreign diplomats or hostile invaders, it is demonstrably incorrect.
Obama coughed up a proven forgery. A clumsy and crudely made forgery!
As for the scholarly references, I'd have to read them to form an opinion. From experience, I often disagree with the scholars, and can point out the error(s) in their work.
People are passionate for their candidate and against their rivals.
I have nothing against being passionate for a candidate. I do have something against being so passionately against every other single candidate in a primary field. If the guy you like doesn't win, then someone else is going to be running against Hillary/Bernie. If it's going to be "my guy or nobody", then fine. Let's just get that out in the open then.
There is nothing wrong with nastiness. Take a look in the 1800s when candidates used to accuse others of bestiality and incest in campaign posters. what we have today is positively civilized by comparison.
Pointing out nastiness from the 1800's doesn't mean there's nothing wrong with nastiness now. It means only that nastiness isn't unprecedented. That's a useful argument when the left (usually) starts whining about "this partisanship is unprecedented/worse than it has ever been, and therefore we must all unite behind this turd", but otherwise, it's kind of meaningless. And it's no justification for nastiness towards every other candidate in a primary field
Again, my issue is that this is the primary. And like it or not, none of these guys can win unless the vast majority of Republicans choose to support them. Pointlessly alienating people/voters you need to actually win the general election just because you find it amusing is juvenile as hell.
I have a lot of reservations about Trump, mostly focusing on the fact that I just don't think he's a conservative. The one major issue on which I agree with him is something in which I have little faith he'll actually execute. But the saving grace for me -- the reason I'd vote for any of those candidates over Hillary/Bernie -- is the Supreme Court. If it wasn't 5-4 with a vacancy virtually guaranteed to open, I might stick to my guns more on principle. But if we lose just one vote, gun rights and a while lot of other things go right out the window. So as of right now, I can still hold my nose and vote for Trump.
But some of you guys make it really tempting to do otherwise.
So, Canada is a leader on the NWO express. Naturalized citizens under US law (born abroad to one citizen parent) would be natural born in Canada, even though the child may have mixed citizenship at birth.
Another Freeper posted this link to a documented timeline of the Cruz family citizenship that made me wonder the same:
http://www.scribd.com/mobile/doc/256409078/Cruz-Citizenship-Timeline-documented
In WKA, the Court needed to define the meaning and scope of "subject to the jurisdiction thereof." The Court observed that the 39th Congress affirmed that the citizenship clause of both the Civil Rights Act and the 14th Amendment were merely declaratory of existing law. So to understand "born . . . in the U.S., and subject to the jurisdiction thereof," the Court looked to the prior law -- which was the common law of "natural born citizen."
You've done a fine job of breaking down Rogers v. Bellei for the benefit of those contending "citizen at birth" equates to "natural born citizen." Allow me to likewise explicate how in WKA the Court equates "natural born citizen" with "born . . . in the U.S., and subject to the jurisdiction thereof." This is a bit lengthy, but given scope of the opinion, it's hard to avoid. Gray breaks his opinion down into 7 enumerated parts, and the rationale of the decision is easier to follow when one pays heed to these divisions.
WKA traces the meaning of "born . . . in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction" by noting the common law origins of the phrase:
The Constitution of the United States, as originally adopted, uses the words "citizen of the United States," and "natural-born citizen of the United States."
* * *
The Constitution nowhere defines the meaning of these words, either by way of inclusion or of exclusion, except insofar as this is done by the affirmative declaration that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States." In this as in other respects, it must be interpreted in the light of the common law, the principles and history of which were familiarly known to the framers of the Constitution.
So the Court explicitly links "natural born citizen" with the 14th Amendment "born in the U.S." language. And it indicates that the latter (the 14th Amendment) "defines" in part the meaning of the former (natural born citizen).
The Court then restates the rule of Constitutional interpretation earlier stated in Smith v. Alabama:
There is no common law of the United States, in the sense of a national customary law, distinct from the common law of England as adopted by the several States each for itself, applied as its local law, and subject to such alteration as may be provided by its own statutes. . . . There is, however, one clear exception to the statement that there is no national common law. The interpretation of the Constitution of the United States is necessarily influenced by the fact that its provisions are framed in the language of the English common law, and are to be read in the light of its history.
J. Gray then sets out to define the meaning of "natural born citizen" by tracing the meaning of the English common law counterpart "natural born subject." This is Part II of Gray's opinion, in which he concludes:
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.
Then starting Part III J Gray observes:
The same rule was in force in all the English Colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established.
This can ONLY mean (given that shortly after the Court states "natural born subject" and "natural born citizen" to be "precisely analogous" terms) that the prevailing "rule" in the U.S. was that "every child born in the United States of alien parents is a 'natural born citizen.'" There is no plausible alternative reading for what he means by "the same rule."
In Part IV the Court kicks Vattel and appeal to "international law" to the sidelines as inapposite to the domestic law question of citizenship.
In Part V the Court then demonstrates how "born in the U.S. . . and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" was a formal incorporation of the common law meaning of "natural born citizen" (same jus soli rule with the same exceptions, save for the addition of the additional case of Native Americans:
The real object of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, in qualifying the words, "All persons born in the United States" by the addition "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof," would appear to have been to exclude, by the fewest and fittest words (besides children of members of the Indian tribes, standing in a peculiar relation to the National Government, unknown to the common law), the two classes of cases -- children born of alien enemies in hostile occupation and children of diplomatic representatives of a foreign State -- both of which, as has already been shown, by the law of England and by our own law from the time of the first settlement of the English colonies in America, had been recognized exceptions to the fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the country. Calvin's Case, 7 Rep. 1, 18b; Cockburn on Nationality, 7; Dicey Conflict of Laws, 177; Inglis v. Sailors' Snug Harbor, 3 Pet. 99, 155; 2 Kent Com. 39, 42.
So the Court (following the lead of the 39th Congress) makes abundantly clear that "natural born citizen" and "born . . . in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" mean the same thing. The latter was statutory and Constitutional incorporation of the common law meaning of the former.
So the following propositions are easily demonstrated in the text of WKA:
1. The 14th Amendment in part "defines" the meaning of the original terms "citizen" and "natural born citizen."
2. The 14th Amendment language "born . . . in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" incorporates the American common law meaning of "natural born citizen," which in turn followed the same rule which had prevailed in England: that every child born of alien parents was "natural born."
3. The decision of the case (that Mr. Wong was a citizen under the "born in" clause of the 14th Amendment) means ipso facto that he was thus a "natural born citizen" under the original constitution, since "natural born citizen" and "born in . . the U.S., and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" in the Court's analysis mean the same thing.
As for the scholarly references, I'd have to read them to form an opinion.
What's significant is that the scholarly consensus on this point is unanimous. And WKA is the reason why everyone speaking on this point arrives at the same conclusion.
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