Posted on 02/20/2016 8:52:39 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Now Donald Trump is questioning Marco Rubio' eligibility for the presidency.
In a tweet Saturday, Trump shared a video of what appears to be an attorney making a bizarre case that not only Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who was born in Canada, but Rubio, whose parents immigranted from Cuba, is not eligible to become president.
In the tweet to his 6.3 million followers, Trump quoted a message sent to him by another Twitter user, who at the time appeared to have five followers: "@realDonaldTrump Mr. Trump...BOTH Cruz AND Rubio are ineligible to be POTUS! It's a SLAM DUNK CASE!! Check it!"
The tweet links to a video on the website of the Powdered Whig Society, a group that says it is dedicated "to the restoration and strict obedience to the United States Constitution."
The 12-minute video shows an unidentified woman who is purported to be a litigation attorney describe what it means to be a natural born citizen. She argues that both Rubio and Cruz are citizens, but not "natural born citizens" according to the Constitution, which says only natural born citizens may become president.
Rubio was born in Miami. That makes him a natural born U.S. citizen under the Constitution. But the unnamed woman in the video Trump posted says he is not a "naturalized citizen," because his citizenship is defined under Section 1 of the 14th Amendment. If not for this "man-made law," she says Rubio would have been born a "resident alien," the same status of his parents, both of whom were Cuban nationals.
The supposed attorney later goes on to call Congress using laws to change the original text of the Constitution as "ridiculous."
"In order to understand the genuine meaning of a text, we must use the definition the framer's use, otherwise texts become like Play-Doh. They mean whatever you want them to mean to get the outcome you want," she says.
Cruz, who was born in Canada to father who was a Cuban national and an American mother. Some legal scholars says that leaves his eligibility to run for president in question. But the supposed attorney makes a far more questionable case. She argues that when the Constitution was written, a woman's legal identity was subsumed into her husband's. That would also disqualify Cruz, she says, because it is necessary that he be born of a father who is a citizen.
When the Constitution was written in the 1780s, the purported attorney says all the framers knew what a natural born citizen was, using a definition provided in Swiss philosopher and legal expert Emerich de Vattel's book on political philosophy The Law of Nations. In it, she says, a child's status as a citizen is defined as being inherited from the father, and that it does not matter where the child is born.
Like his eye color, citizenship is "inherited by his parents, it's in his blood," she says. "Not an act of Congress."
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What does “Scottish law” say about natural born citizenship?
The United States Supreme Court settled it back in 1875.
The Supreme Court of the United States has never applied the term “natural born citizen” to any other category than “those born in the country of parents who are citizens thereof”.
Neither the 14th Amendment nor Wong Kim Ark make one a Natural Born Citizen
So do I.
Thank you. I believe We must go back to teaching the Constitution and Civics in our schools instead of wasting so much effort on “Diversity.”
Crazed birthers don’t belong in the Republican Party... or any conservative movement.
NBC doesn’t apply to positions other than President and Vice President. But there are eligibility requirements for Congress and Senate, and it’s stupid to wait until after the election to challenge someone on eligibility. That should be done before the ballot is put together.
NBC doesn’t apply to positions other than President and Vice President. But there are eligibility requirements for Congress and Senate, and it’s stupid to wait until after the election to challenge someone on eligibility. That should be done before the ballot is put together.
I heard there was some questions about Trump’s parents.
Maybe, the real question should be why we don’t have more multi-generational Americans running for president.
Are we doing something to kill of the spirit of ambition?
Narcissism with a touch of megalomania...
All of his wives were citizen when children were born. It is the wives that are not eligible not the children
And after it says “a citizen of the United States,” it then says: “at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution,...”. You are taking one part out of context and leaving out its qualifier, which completed a grandfathering clause which qualified the first presidents and was necessary for obvious reasons.
Listen to the video you will understand that the sixteen amendment does not supercede the constitution You obviously don’t have the intelligenence to follow her well thought out and presented argument.We have a winner for the most idiotic comment of the day!
The Sixteenth Amendment IS the Constitution, every bit as much as the First, Second or Tenth.
Is it also your opinion that the Thirteenth Amendment didn't "supersede" the "right" to own slaves? Or that the Eighteenth didn't "supersede" the right to make alcohol or that the Twenty-First didn't "supersede" the prohibition against making alcohol?
We are allowed to change the Constitution. And when the Constitution doesn't define a term (as in "Natural Born Citizen"), it is Congress, not some Swiss writer, who gets to define the term. And Congress has defined the term NBC several times, starting in 1790 (the very first Congress under our Constitution.
Sorry if you have trouble understanding that.
And the Natural Born Citizen clause was introduced by slave owners. And Slaves and the children and grandchildren of slaves born in the United States were not considered citizens of the United States until we fought a war to change it.
Obviously soil has nothing to do with whether or not someone is a "natural born citizen". Congress was given the power after the Civil War to enforce the provisions of the 14th Amendment by passing appropriate legislation.
Under the 14th Amendment both Rubio and Cruz are natural born citizens as there are only two kinds of citizens, natural born and naturalized.
There is not a legitimate court in America that would declare either of them ineligible.
Get over it.
No, she's a wing nut.
Article 2 says this: No person except a natural born citizen, OR a citizen of the United States.. It says "or" and not "and." What's so hard to understand? Didn't Trump take an English course in college?
Did you miss the next part..or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution
They had to put in that clause to allow the grandfathering in of all who were made American citizens at the time of the birth of America. There would be no natural born citizens eligible to become President until 35 years after the signing of the Constitution. After the cohort that were made citizens on the day of the signing of the Constitution died there could be only natural born citizen serving as President/Vice President.
We the People ... and to OUR Posterity, do ordain and establish
The Constitution does not say, to alien residents and their posterity now does it. The language of the Constitution defines who is naturalized and who is natural born.
Virginia, under Governor Thomas Jefferson, 1779
Be it enacted by the General Assembly, that all white persons born within the territory of this commonwealth and all who have resided therein two years next before the passing of this act, and all who shall hereafter migrate into the same; and shall before any court of record give satisfactory proof by their own oath or affirmation, that they intend to reside therein, and moreover shall give assurance of fidelity to the commonwealth; and all infants wheresoever born,whose father, if living, or otherwise, whose mother was, a citizen at the time of their birth, or who migrate hither, their father, if living, or otherwise their mother becoming a citizen, or who migrate hither without father or mother, shall be deemed citizens of this commonwealth, until they relinquish that character in manner as herein after expressed: And all others not being citizens of any the United States of America, shall be deemed aliens.
Theo, at the time Rubio was born his parents were not yet U.S. Citizens. That is the definition of “anchor baby”. His citizenship was not guaranteed by the constitution. Native Americans, some of my ancestors, despite being born within our borders were not considered “Natural Born Citizens” eligible to be president by the framers.
You obviously have not listened to the video. It blows your meager weak argument totally out of the water Not smart enough to comprehend what she is saying or do you just prefer the liberal progressive interpretation oh follower of Obama!
Unfortunately no - it is probably the exact opposite. I think those traits you mention are very things that allow politicians to be so shameless when they haven't ever created a damn thing in their life except graft, corruption and obstacles oh and hot air.
You are absolutely correct, the first generation naturalizes, if they are US citizens by the time of their child’s birth, and that child is born in the USA, that child can become president because he/she is natural born. There is all the support in the world for that and it was the Founders intention, supported in multiple court cases.
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