All those babies born abroad are in fact disqualified. hate to break their dream, but that’s the constitution. Recent case law (Aug 2015) on the subject of a baby born on a US military base in Germany. NOT A CITIZEN, because the citizen parent lacked the US residence necessary to transmit citizenship, and a US base abroad is not “in the US” for citizenship purposes.
Ah. It’s so simple.
So Maria from Mexico can have her son born in the United States so that he can become President of the United States?
Or an illegal Russian couple giving birth to their son Yuri can be President of the United States?
Right?
Can you elaborate on the status of the citizen parent? Children of U.S. servicemen, business expats, academics, state dept. kids, etc. most certainly ARE American citizens from birth. What created an exception in this case? In the Obama chronicles, much was made of Stanley Dunham Obama's minority. Was the mother underage in the German case?
The years of residency requirement is (I presume) a statutory provision, as the Constitution most certainly does not discuss any such thing. Rules pertaining to dual citizenship are also statutory, not constitutional. Arguably, birthright citizenship for "Maria from Tijuana's" anchor baby could also be changed by Act of Congress, although there would be an argument about that.
My point is, the Constitution does not define natural born citizen. We can peer into penumbras and emanations and accede to judges making something up out of thin air, or we can adopt the simple and robust standard that "natural born" equals "citizen from birth" under the laws that obtain at the time.