Posted on 02/07/2016 10:07:51 AM PST by Yashcheritsiy
The concluding statement in the article:
"The introduction to this Article posed a question: “in the eyes of early Americans, would someone born in a foreign country of American parents be a ‘natural born citizen’ and therefore eligible to be President of the United States?†The pertinent historical materials lead to only one conclusion: aside from children born to U.S. ambassadors or soldiers in hostile armies, the answer is “no.â€"
(Excerpt) Read more at papers.ssrn.com ...
The 1795 Act omits the words “natural bornâ€All that proves is that Congress does have the right to defin who is or is not a NBC.
I’m going to conjecture that some sharp eyed clark in a tri-cornered hat said, “Hey, wait a second! ... we just expressly contradicted Article 2, Section 1, clause 5.â€Oh, well, if you're going to conjecture, I guess we can put this to bed. After all, your conjectures are the ultimate authority on Constitutional Law! /s
All the Constitution says is that there are two types of Citizens (Natural-born and Naturalized) and that only Natural-born citizens can be President. That's it.
It's up to Congress to define who is or isn't a NBC. It's not up to some French author, it's not up to the Courts, and it's most definitely not up to your "conjecture".
According to the law in effect at the time, Cruz is a NBC.
Citing the two statutes dated 1790 and 1795 offered to prove that Cruz is a NBC,
the 1795 act says that the following are citizens (not NBC):
“the children of citizens of the United States, born out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States”
I’m not sure if Cruz’s mother renounced her American citizenship (I read somewhere here that her records are sealed?), but his pappy was Cubano.
Notice the 1795 act says “citizens” (plural).
A literal reading of the act would mean that if Cruz renounced his Canadian citizenship (not long after filing to run for prez) and was not an American citizen, i.e. was never naturalized, well, then as well as being an undocumented immigrant, he’s squatting in his current position as a US senator:
ARTICLE I, SECTION 3, 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.
My brother was born in an Army hospital in Munich, W. Germany. My grandfather, a WWI vet, asked my mother to have him naturalized when he was just a little shaver in OKC.
To alleviate his concern that the Germans might start up yet another world war and snatch him up as a natural born goose-stepper, she did take him to OKC and have him naturalized.
I agree with you that little bro’ is a “natural born citizen” because he was born in an Army hospital in a place to which my father was ordered to serve.
Both my parents were `red-dirt Okie’-born, Pop was lifer Army.
This issue is certainly arguable, but it’s not the issue here, except insofar as it affects parentage and Article 2, Section 1, clause 5.
This has bothered me for some time. On that list you posted only one of the five named is a democrat. All the rest, all four are republicans. Before and more so after Obama, republicans have not even attempted to ensure that all their candidates meet the original eligibility standards.
I know they are globalists who want anyone in the world to be eligible to run for US president. I know that they no longer allow civics and history to be taught in schools, preferring to teach social studies and world civilizations. Now they have their false prophet the media, even the so-called “conservative” media, deceiving people into thinking whatever they want the people to think. Without an education to tell these kids the truth, they fall into believing whatever they are told. I see it right here and I just shake my head.
It’s up to Congress to define who is or isn’t a NBC.”
Agree
“It’s not up to some French author, it’s not up to the Courts, and it’s most definitely not up to your “conjecture”.”
Agree
“According to the law in effect at the time, Cruz is a NBC.”
Strongly disagree
I am simply asking you to quote the language of the 1795 Naturalization Act that applies to the line you quoted from the Act of 1790. Is this to big of a request?Look up your own damn citations. I'm not here to do your work for you.
Sure, the 1795 law updated the clause and removed the explicit "Natural Born Citizen" statement. So what?
If you accept that Congress does have the right to define who is or isn't a NBC, then you lose the argument because the law Congress passed when Cruz was born clearly makes him a NBC.
If you don't accept that Congress gets to define the term, then the 1795 law is just as invalid as the 1790 law. Plus, you then have to come up with some rationalization as to just who does get to define the term. I'll give you a hint: it's not you.
“Natural Born Citizen’s meaning at the time the Constitution was written under the common law was that a person born within the Realm and jurisdiction of the Sovereign was a Natural Born Citizen.”
No, the opposite is true. Such a person was not a natural born citizen as stated by the Naturalization Acts and the U.S. Supreme Court.
66 Stat. Public Law 414 - June 27, 1952. TITLE III - NATIONALITY AND NATURALIZATION. Chapter 1 - Nationality at Birth and by Collective Naturalization. NATIONALS AND CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES AT BIRTH. Sec. 301. (a) The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth; . . . (7) a person born outside the geographical limits of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is an alien, and the other a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, was physically present in the United States or its outlying possessions for a period or periods totaling not less than ten years, at lest five of which were after attaining the age of fourteen years: Provided, That any periods of honorable service in the Armed Forces of the United States by such citizen parent may be included in computing the physical presence requirements of this paragraph.
U.S. Department of State Foreign Affairs Manual Volume 7
Consular Affairs. 7 FAM 1151 INTRODUCTION... b. 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(23); INA 101(a)(23)) defines naturalization as the conferring of nationality of a state upon a person after birth by any means whatsoever. . . For the purposes of this subchapter naturalization includes:... (5) “Automatic†Â acquisition of U.S. citizenship after birth, a form of naturalization by certain children born abroad to U.S. citizen parents or children adopted abroad by U.S. citizen parents.
United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 18 S.Ct. 456, 42 L.Ed. said “A person born out of the jurisdiction of the United States can only become a citizen by being naturalized....”
“It has also been adjudicated on more than one occasion that anyone born on U.S. Soil to parents legally within the U.S. is a Natural Born Citizen of the United States.”
No, that is a blatant lie that is exactly the opposite of the truth. Read again:
United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 18 S.Ct. 456, 42 L.Ed. said “A person born out of the jurisdiction of the United States can only become a citizen by being naturalized....”
“Actually, you need to read the article then, esp. starting at pp. 332. The author makes an excellent case that the 1790 naturalisation law did exactly the opposite of what you just said.”
Respectfully disagree. I read that section and what I found was that her argument depended on casually dismissing the 1790 Statute as if it had little weight in understanding what the Framers meant by NBC. This was the very first congress sitting after the adoption of the Constitution, including many who were involved in the adoption debates if not contemporaries who understood how that term was used at the time. And no, they were not amending the Constitution, they were simply codifying the meaning of the words “NBC” for purpose of a specific statutory framework for citizenship and naturalization. She casually dismisses this argument as well.
I not only find her argument very unpersuasive, but detect a very strong predisposition. A law review article should not read like a polemic, but should be written with analytical detachment. She has a dog in the fight. Don’t know why, but that’s the way it reads, IMHO.
Johnny B. shoots and SCORES! Again!
Correcto Mungo.
You must 'naturally' be a citizen of only one country.
When you are born, you are either a 'Dual Citizen' or an NBC.
It's one or the other. You cannot be both. However, I really don't care anymore since the media has allowed Obama to get away with it.
"According to the law in effect at the time, Cruz is a NBC." Strongly disagreeWhy?
Here is the relevant law:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1401And here is the relevant clause of that law:
(g) a person born outside the geographical limits of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is an alien, and the other a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, was physically present in the United States or its outlying possessions for a period or periods totaling not less than five years, at least two of which were after attaining the age of fourteen yearsTed Cruz's mother clearly meets the requirements here (she is, in fact, a NBC). Therefore, her children are NBC.
The 1790 law was Unconstitutional, and quickly re-written.
Congress has the power to Naturalize citizens ONLY. It cannot create Natural Born Citizens.
Natural Born Citizens are determined by Natural Law, no law made by Man can address it.
The Foundation of Natural Law is self-evidence. As in “We hold these truths to be self-evident...” Self-evidence dictates that a child born to US citizens on US soil is a Natural Born Citizen of the US.
ANYTHING that complicates the matter obviates that Natural Born Citizen status. Thus, when women became able to pass THEIR citizenship to children, Natural Law for a Natural Born Citizen ceased to rely only upon the father’s citizenship and the child’s birth location, but now includes *both* parents.
CONGRESS has the power to Naturalize Citizens. That’s it...nothing more...but, it has been ruled that having the power, they have unlimited scope within that power. This allows Congress to Naturalize a child *at birth* AND without requiring *any* naturalization process. This is all it can do.
Congress *NEVER* had the power to legally write up who could be a Natural Born Citizen.
The entire point is moot until we once again have a Limited Constitutional Federal Republic.
When Madison rewrote the Act in 1795, he took that out.
As an attorney, I’d say that this is the best article I have read on the topic.
The issue is that there just isn’t a clear definition of the phrase. Legal terms of art get their definition either from a statute, e.g. “treason” in the Constitution, or through development if the common law. NBC really has neither. There just aren’t dozens of cases from the 18th century on whether you are a nbc if: your mom is a citizen and your dad isn’t,and vice versa, you’re born here, or not, etc.
In the end it was bad job by Madison. He should have defined the term.
I had two children born in Berlin in the 1980’s If your Daughter ran for President or my kids, Trumpers would call them ineligible and declare them closet Nazis.
“It’s a tricky question.”
It’s very simple. Birth abroad and outside U.S. jurisdiction, without diplomatic immunity, results in the acquisition of foreign allegiance by the child at birth. The only means of acquiring U.S. citizenship when born abroad is by the authority of a naturalization law and naturalization at birth or after birth. See:
United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 18 S.Ct. 456, 42 L.Ed. said “A person born out of the jurisdiction of the United States can only become a citizen by being naturalized....”
“When my wife went into labor eight weeks early in Paris (both of us natural born US citizens, on our final vacation as just a couple), would that have prevented our oldest child from being a natural born citizen if a French doctor had not been able to stop her labor?”
Yes, such a child cannot be a natural born citizen. Birth abroad without diplomatic immunity is an alien birth requiring naturalization at birth or after birth to acquire U.S. citizenship.
“I suspect even 200 years ago, “natural born citizen†would have been like porn - you know it when you see it, but not everyone would have agreed.”
Actually, due to people being acutely aware of their class privileges, they would have been acutely aware of the fact persons born abroad were not allowed to hold any public office from a Member of Parliament down to the lowliest local official. The new United States suddenly changed all of that by removing those broad prohibitions against all persons born abroad, except for the Vice President and the President of the United States. As those first generations of Americans passed away, the general memory of those restrictions upon the alien or foreign faded from the public memory.
“I suspect an “anchor baby†born here to someone illegally on our soil or even to a tourist or merchant who was not a legal permanent resident would not have been considered a natural born citizen back then.”
No, they were not, as determined in the U.S. Supreme Court case Scott v. Sanford (1857).
“I would like to see Congress or even a constitutional amendment define the term simply.”
The Constitution has no power to change the laws of nature and natural law that have been in existence for thousands of years before the Constitution. The Constitution is a legislative act and Positive Law, which is the opposite of Natural Law. The Constitution can observe the existene of a natural law, but it cannot make natural law or redefine natural law or natural born citizenship. The Constitution granted the Congress the enumerated power “To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization.” Naturalization is where manmade statutory law is used to Make an alien person a citizen for the purposes of the administration of the law, despite not being born as an actual citizen. Think of it as being like a father at litem, meaning a father under the law, despite not being the actual natural father or biological father. A naturalized person is alien born, regardless of alien parents or citizen parents, and a statutory law is used to confer upon the alien born person some but not all of the conditions of citizenship enjoyed by an actual natural born citizen.
“Hard cases make bad law, and we want to at least outline who (other than those on the vague borderlines that crop up) clearly is or is not a natural born citizen.”
The only reason there is any serious difficulties is because of the sustained efforts by certain people to deny, lie, and obfuscate the actual historical record and usage of the terminology for their own ambitious purposes.
The term "natural born" citizen is not defined in the Constitution, and there is no discussion of the term evident in the notes of the Federal Convention of 1787.Note that Cruz is undoubtedly a Citizen, and that he never went through a "naturalization" process, so, by the process of elimination, he must be a NBC.The weight of legal and historical authority indicates that the term "natural born" citizen would mean a person who is entitled to U.S. citizenship "by birth" or "at birth," either by being born "in" the United States and under its jurisdiction, even those born to alien parents; by being born abroad to U.S. citizen-parents; or by being born in other situations meeting legal requirements for U.S. citizenship "at birth." Such term, however , would not include a person who was not a U.S. citizen by birth or at birth, and who was thus born an “alien†required to go through the legal process of "naturalization" to become a U.S. citizen.
Actually, they realized the opposite. The 1790 Act says they should be treated as if they were NBCs. If they were actually NBCs under the Constitution, such a law wouldn’t make any sense.
Only basing my ? on reports that he was born in a hospital outside of the Canal Zone.
Regardless, what we are talking about is the inability to hold 1 (one) job in the United States of America. Why does this concern you?
You've just provided a statement defining what "Natural Born" jerk is.
Your argument is solid shit. Don't ask others to step in it.
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