Posted on 01/24/2016 1:04:47 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
I usually enjoy reading Ann Coulter's columns thanks to her acerbic wit and gutsy grit. But, being human, she has flaws, among which is a penchant to suspend rationality when advocating for her flavor of the year in Republican presidential candidates. In past years, it was Chris Christie and Mitt Romney. Now, thanks mainly to his tough stance on immigration, it's Donald Trump.
This infatuation has caused her to write some ridiculous things about the eligibility of Ted Cruz for the presidency. Her use of the term "naturalization" is, frankly, unworthy of her status as a law school graduate. A recently published article from the Harvard Law Review holds that: "All the sources routinely used to interpret the Constitution confirm that the phrase 'natural born citizen' has a specific meaning - namely, someone who is a U.S. citizen at birth with no need to go through a naturalization proceeding at some later time." Cruz meets this requirement.
There are only two paths to citizenship: automatically at birth, or after one's birth through some legal process such as immigration and naturalization. The plain meaning of "natural born citizen" is understood to be a person who was a citizen "naturally" by reason of birth, as differentiated from obtaining citizenship later in life. In 1790, the First Congress passed a law providing, "And the children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens."
Newton Schwartz, an 85-year-old lawyer, has filed a lawsuit in a federal district court in Texas challenging Cruz' eligibility. Schwartz told Bloomberg News that, while he's not linked to any particular presidential campaign, he will probably support Democrat/Socialist Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Nice company you're in, Annie!
Legally, this man has no "standing" to file this action. Only another presidential candidate could do so. If Trump actually thinks Cruz is ineligible, let him file suit and request expedited consideration which, along with any subsequent appeals, would surely be decided on an emergency basis. Otherwise, let's move on to real issues!
Stupid auto correct.
SCOTUS has not issued an opinion against the fact that people born in another country to a US citizen are considered natural born and citizens at birth.
Yes, Ted mother was a citizen and Ted became a citizen at birth.
In a deportation proceeding, the INS bears the ultimate burden of establishing all facts supporting deportability by clear, unequivocal, and convincing evidence. Murphy v. INS, 54 F.3d 605, 609-610 (9th Cir. 1995). However, evidence of foreign birth gives rise to a rebuttable presumption of alienage, shifting the burden to the respondent or deportee to prove citizenship. Id. If the deportee can produce substantial credible evidence in support of his or her citizenship claim, thereby rebutting the presumption, INS' burden of proving deportability by clear and convincing evidence again comes into play. Id.; see also Woodby v. INS, 385 U.S. 276, 277, 286, 87 S. Ct. 483, 484, 488 (1966).
I get that you don’t like the law. That doesn’t change the law. Feel free to have your own interpretation. I hope it makes you happy in your irrelevance.
Ted was mistaken in his tweet. He should correct it and admit that trump lost to a little old woman despite his attempts to steal her home via eminent domain.
Who in our government has the responsibility to define “natural born Citizen?”
Lol. When numerous people trained and experienced in this area of law say the same thing I believe them.
Must suck to believe as you do and have nothing to back you up.
Talk about a flexible NBC test.
I think you are an irrational kook.
Oh please. Your attempt to create cognitive dissonence in me does not work. I cited and excerpted plenty of legal authority. All you have in rebuttal is bluster and insults. You are a child.
You are hereby delegated. Goodbye.
No, I never said that. The question is what exactly NBC means. I think it's 2 to 1 (just a guess) that they would rule for Cruz. First you have to remember that the court takes politics into consideration, that's just a fact. Now the real question is would they rule there are two classes of citizens, those born a citizen, and those who aren't born citizens and are naturalized (immigrants). The other alternative is three classes, NBC, those born citizen but not NBC, and naturalized. I think it's more likely that they choose the former.
I'm not a lawyer, but there are very qualified lawyers who argue both sides if this issue. And SCOTUS has never directly ruled on what an NBC is. Notice I'm attacked by both sides when I say it's not settled, which is a pretty good indication that I'm right.
I cannot answer who is responsible.... It has always been part of my life as soon as I was old enough to understand I was born in a foreign country.
Think about it... Why was Trump using that song “Born In The USA” to open up some of his campaign stops? Sure was not because it is a patriotic song...
I can tell you natural born is a birthright, citizen parents, born in the USA, and I can point to where the Founding Fathers came up with it, but that is not good enough.
(Cong. Globe, 39th, 1st Sess., 1291 (1866))
John Armor Bingham (January 21, 1815 – March 19, 1900) was an American Republican congressman from the U.S. state of Ohio, judge advocate in the trial of the Abraham Lincoln assassination and a prosecutor in the impeachment trials of Andrew Johnson. He is also the principal framer of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
The first section of the second article of the Constitution uses the language, a natural-born citizen. It thus assumes that citizenship may be acquired by birth. Undoubtedly, this language of the Constitution was used in reference to that principle of public law, well understood in this country at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, which referred citizenship to the place of birth.
Justice Curtis in his dissenting opinion of the Dred Scott decision and speaking specifically of atural born citizens and article II, section I, clause 5
It is an established maxim that birth is a criterion of allegiance. Birth however derives its force sometimes from place and sometimes from parentage, but in general place is the most certain criterion; it is what applies in the United States; it will therefore be unnecessary to investigate any other.â€
James Madison
“The doctrine of the common law is that every man born within its jurisdiction is a subject of the sovereign of the country where he is born, and allegiance is not personal to the sovereign in the extent that has been contended for; it is due to him in his political capacity of sovereign of the territory where the person owing the allegiance as born.â€
Kilham v. Ward 2 Mass. 236, 26 (1806)
“As the President is required to be a native citizen of the United States…. Natives are all persons born within the jurisdiction and allegiance of the United States.â€
James Kent, COMMENTARIES ON AMERICAN LAW (1826)
“That provision in the constitution which requires that the president shall be a native-born citizen (unless he were a citizen of the United States when the constitution was adopted) is a happy means of security against foreign influence,…A very respectable political writer makes the following pertinent remarks upon this subject. “Prior to the adoption of the constitution, the people inhabiting the different states might be divided into two classes: natural born citizens, or those born within the state, and aliens, or such as were born out of it.â€
St. George Tucker, BLACKSTONE’S COMMENTARIES (1803)
“Allegiance is nothing more than the tie or duty of obedience of a subject to the sovereign under whose protection he is, and allegiance by birth is that which arises from being born within the dominions and under the protection of a particular sovereign. Two things usually concur to create citizenship: first, birth locally within the dominions of the sovereign, and secondly, birth within the protection and obedience, or, in other words, within the allegiance of the sovereign….That the father and mother of the demandant were British born subjects is admitted. If he was born before 4 July, 1776, it is as clear that he was born a British subject. If he was born after 4 July, 1776, and before 15 September, 1776 [the date the British occupied New York], he was born an American citizen, whether his parents were at the time of his birth British subjects or American citizens. Nothing is better settled at the common law than the doctrine that the children even of aliens born in a country while the parents are resident there under the protection of the government and owing a temporary allegiance thereto are subjects by birth.â€
Justice Story, concurring opinion,Inglis v. Sailors’ Snug Harbor, 3 Pet. 99, 155,164. (1830)
“The country where one is born, how accidental soever his birth in that place may have been, and although his parents belong to another country, is that to which he owes allegiance. Hence the expression natural born subject or citizen, & all the relations thereout growing. To this there are but few exceptions, and they are mostly introduced by statutes and treaty regulations, such as the children of seamen and ambassadors born abroad, and the like.â€
Leake v. Gilchrist, 13 N.C. 73 (N.C. 1829)
“Therefore every person born within the United States, its territories or districts, whether the parents are citizens or aliens, is a natural born citizen in the sense of the Constitution, and entitled to all the rights and privileges appertaining to that capacity.â€
William Rawle, A View of the Constitution of the United States, pg. 86 (1829)
The right of citizenship never descends in the legal sense, either by the common law or under the common naturalization acts. It is incident to birth in the country, or it is given personally by statute. The child of an alien, if born in the country, is as much a citizen as the natural born child of a citizen, and by operation of the same principle
Horace Binney, American Law Register, 2 Amer.Law Reg.193, 203, 204, 206, 208 (February 1854).
“That all natural born citizens, or persons born within the limits of the United States, and all aliens subject to the restrictions hereinafter mentioned, may inherit real estate and make their pedigree by descent from any ancestor lineal or collateral…â€
January 28, 1838, Acts of the State of Tennessee passed at the General Assembly, pg. 266 (1838)
“The term citizen, was used in the constitution as a word, the meaning of which was already established and well understood. And the constitution itself contains a direct recognition of the subsisting common law principle, in the section which defines the qualification of the President… The only standard which then existed, of a natural born citizen, was the rule of the common law, and no different standard has been adopted since. Suppose a person should be elected President who was native born, but of alien parents, could there be any reasonable doubt that he was eligible under the constitution? I think not. â€
Lynch vs. Clarke (NY 1844)
“Every person, then, born in the country, and that shall have attained the age of thirty-five years, and been fourteen years a resident within the United States, is eligible to the office of president.â€
Lysander Spooner, The Unconstitionality of Slavery, pg. 119 (1845)
“It is the very essence of the condition of a natural born citizen, of one who is a member of the state by birth within and under it, that his rights are not derived from the mere will of the state.â€
The New Englander, Vol. III, pg. 434 (1845)
“This is called becoming naturalized; that is, becoming entitled to all the rights and privileges of natural born citizens, or citizens born in this country.â€
Andrew White Young, First lessons in Civil Government, pg. 82 (1856).
“The Constitution itself does not make the citizens, (it is. in fact,made by them.) It only intends and recognizes such of them as are natural—home-born—and provides for the naturalization of such of them as were alien—foreign-born—making the latter, as far as nature will allow, like the former. …†‘
Attorney General Bates, Opinion of Citizenship, (1862)
“All persons born in the allegiance of the king are natural-born subjects, and all persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural-born citizens. Birth and allegiance go together. Such is the rule of the common law, and it is the common law of this country, as well as of England.
Justice Swayne, United States v. Rhodes, 1 Abbott, US 28 (Cir. Ct. Ky 1866)
“Natural-born Citizens, those that are born within the jurisdiction of a national government; i.e., in its territorial limits, or those born of citizens, temporarily residing abroad.â€
William Cox Cochran, The student’s law lexicon: a dictionary of legal words and phrases : with appendices, Pg. 185 (1888)
“Citizens are either natural-born or naturalized. One who is born in the United States or under its jurisdiction is a natural-born citizen without reference to the nationality of his parents. Their presence here constitutes a temporary allegiance, sufficient to make a child a citizen.â€
Theodore Dwight, Edward Dwight, Commentaries on the law of persons and personal property, pg. 125 (1894)
“The notion that there is any common law principle to naturalize the children born in foreign countries, of native-born American father and mother, father or mother, must be discarded. There is not, and never was, any such common law principle. Binney on Alienigenae, 14, 20; 2 Amer.Law Reg.199, 203
The state Department does not issue birth certificates, See 7 FAM 1441.1(f)
f. The Form FS-240 is not a birth certificate, such as is issued by a government-authorized bureau or office of vital statistics, because consular officers are not authorized to assume a foreign local or state vital statistics function. The Form FS-240 is a consular declaration of the fact of acquisition of U.S. citizenship at birth based upon:(1) The certification of, or attestation to, the facts of birth by a legally authorized local official in the place where the birth occurred;
(2) The affidavit executed by the parent(s) or legal guardian(s) or other evidence regarding the physical presence of the U.S. citizen/national parent(s), or in the case of two citizen parents, residence, necessary to transmit U.S. citizenship/noncitizen nationality to the child;
(3) Evidence of the physical relationship between the U.S. citizen and the child;
(4) Evidence of the legal relationship between the U.S. citizen and the child, such as proof of the U.S. citizen/national parent(s)as citizenship and marriage or for births out of wedlock, legitimation in accordance with Section 309 INA (8 U.S.C. 1409) or predecessor statute, and an affidavit of parentage and financial support if the child is born out of wedlock to a U.S. citizen father;
(5) Evidence of citizenship/nationality of the U.S. citizen/national parent(s); and
(6) Consular adjudication of the child's claim to U.S. citizenship. (See 7 FAM 1100.)
The Framers rejected the notion that a “subject” of a sovereign in English Law equates to a “citizen” in a constitutional republic as part of a rejection of English common law and English law generally as the law of the newborn republic. I do not believe analyses based on this comparison based on a surmise from the Framers’ “familiarity” with English law will stand up in court. Story’s Commentaries reject this notion, among other authorities. Some argue that the Law of Nations which the Framers were familiar with and looked to in matters of citizenship meant the law of America as a nation was modeled on the English law of that nation because of the surmised familiarity with the language of English law. When British warships impressed American seamen on the theory of the seamen having been born as his Majesty’s subjects, we went to war to consolidate the Revolution and reject that idea. Citizens of this Republic owe not allegiance to any sovereign save the Constitution itself. It is that which all public officeholders swear to uphold, protect and defend. You can only be natural born as a citizen if you are born in this country or on its territory with parents both of whom are citizens of this country because it is only then that you are a citizen completely under the Constitution with no allegiance to anything else as sovereign over yourself. Only here, under our Constitution, are the citizens sovereign over the government. At least that was the intent at the Framing. Here a citizen, to be natural born as such in order to be eligible for the presidency, must owe allegiance only to the sovereignty of his fellow citizens of this nation.
I wish you well. Goodbye.
True... My bad... I am not nearly as competent as you in the usage of the correct language... Thank you. I also thank you for being a wonderful teacher...
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