G26ster wrote:I would think that as the term "Naturalized" applies to non-citizens who become citizens by application, then the term "Natural Born" applies to anyone who is a citizen at birth by the fact that one of their parents was an American citizen, regardless of where they were actually born.
jimlongley wrote:It has always been my understanding that all you needed was one American citizen parent, no matter where you were born.
You would think..........but I have been told from an early age that I could never be a president, yet my brothers (same parents) who were both born in SoCal could. On the other hand, if that were true, Obama's mother was American.....so unless he had renounced his American citizenship, there would be no argument about his eligibility for office.........and no, I'm not trying to open that can of worms back up, except to say that such a SCOTUS ruling would have been useful before 2008.
Nobody debates whether one American citizen parent is enough to guarantee your own citizenship, regardless of where you're born. The question really has more to do with place of birth, and whether one is "natural born" or not.
Article II, Section I of the Constitution says:
No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
I read that to say that A) only a natural born citizen may be president; or B) someone who was a citizen at the time of the adoption of the Constitution.
Here is what Wikipedia says about it (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural-bo ... zen_clause):
The Constitution does not define the phrase natural-born citizen, and various opinions have been offered over time regarding its precise meaning. A 2011 Congressional Research Service report stated
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.
This website says (
http://www.worldandi.com/subscribers/fe ... ?num=26823)
Current definition
Here is where the definition of “natural born citizen” currently stands.
State Department Foreign Affairs Manual
- U.S. citizenship may be acquired either at birth or through naturalization.
- U.S. laws governing the acquisition of citizenship at birth embody two legal principles:
- Jus soli (the law of the soil), a rule of common law under which the place of a person’s birth determines citizenship. In addition to common law, this principle is embodied in the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the various U.S. citizenship and nationality statutes.
- Jus sanguinis (the law of the bloodline ), a concept of Roman or civil law under which a person’s citizenship is determined by the citizenship of one or both parents. This rule, frequently called “citizenship by descent” or “derivative citizenship”, is not embodied in the U.S. Constitution, but such citizenship is granted through statute. As laws have changed, the requirements for conferring and retaining derivative citizenship have also changed.
- Naturalization is “the conferring of nationality of a state upon a person after birth, by any means whatsoever” or conferring of citizenship upon a person. Naturalization can be granted automatically or pursuant to an application. Under U.S. law, foreign naturalization acquired automatically is not an expatriating act.
U.S. Code definition
Title 8, Section 1401, of the U.S. Code provides the current definition for a natural-born citizen.
- Anyone born inside the United States and subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, which exempts the child of a diplomat from this provision
- Any Indian or Eskimo born in the United States, provided being a citizen of the U.S. does not impair the person's status as a citizen of the tribe
- Any one born outside the United States, both of whose parents are citizens of the U.S., as long as one parent has lived in the U.S.
- Any one born outside the United States, if one parent is a citizen and lived in the U.S. for at least one year and the other parent is a U.S. national
- Any one born in a U.S. possession, if one parent is a citizen and lived in the U.S. for at least one year
- Any one found in the U.S. under the age of five, whose parentage cannot be determined, as long as proof of non-citizenship is not provided by age 21
- Any one born outside the United States, if one parent is an alien and as long as the other parent is a citizen of the U.S. who lived in the U.S. for at least five years (with military and diplomatic service included in this time)
This last one in red is what guarantees my own citizenship. If Obama was born in Kenya, as some maintain, then this is also the rule that covers him, since his mother was a native born American who had lived in the U.S. for longer than 5 years. If this makes him ineligible for the presidency, then it would be for the same reasons I have been told that I would be ineligible. On the other hand, what I was told might be wrong......again, not that I care. If Obama was born in Hawaii, then all of this is moot.
So, if the above information I've given is true, then why is it necessary for SCOTUS to clarify it........unless there really does exist an eligibility issue for
natural born citizens who are not
native born American's?
“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.”
― G. Michael Hopf, "Those Who Remain"
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