Re: McCain's Canal Zone Birth Prompts Queries re presidency
flaja wrote:fishin wrote:Where does the Constitution define "Natural born" with a limit placed on those born within the Continental U.S.??
What does natural born citizen mean if not being born within the country of citizenship?
"Natural born" status can be aquired under either of two legal concepts;
Jus soli is the concept that one is "naturally born" a citizen of the country (or "soil") where they were born.
Jus sanguinis is the concept that one is "naturally born" a citizen of the country where the person's parents hold citizenship. Both are valid, accepted and hold true for the U.S. as evidenced by the following line from your own link below:
"A child born abroad to two U.S. citizen parents acquires U.S. citizenship at birth..."
Quote:Quote:The 14th Amendment defines those born within the U.S. as natural born citizens but does not create any exclusion for anyone else.
The 14th Amendment doesn't expressly say anything about what a natural born citizen is. It simply says that all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject of the jurisdiction thereof is a citizen of the United States and the state wherein they reside. It could be argued that the Panama Canal Zone wasn't "in the United States" so McCain doesn't have constitutional citizenship by birth. He was essentially naturalized by federal law.
You are attempting to exclude the jus sanguinis concept. And a person can't be "essentially naturalized". They either are or they aren't.
Show me a copy of McCain's naturalization paperwork.
Quote:Quote:It defines a group that is, but not those who aren't.
It doesn't exclude all persons who are born outside of the United States and who haven't been naturalized?
No. I could say that "All children in the sandbox are covered in sand." Does that automaticlly exclude the possibility that a child that
isn't in the sandbox might also be covered in sand? Basic logic escapes you....
Quote:Quote:Your assumption that those not included in that definition automatically aren't doesn't hold.
How so? If you were not born in the United States you are not automatically a citizen by birth, and if you are not a citizen by birth, you are not a citizen if you haven't been naturalized. If you are born in the United States, then no legislation is needed to make you a citizen. Since McCain is a citizen based on legislation, he must be a naturalized citizen and not a natural born one.
Again, false. See my explaination above as well as your own link below. Your own link states very clearly that one can be born outside of the U.S. and automatically be a citizen at birth.
Quote:Quote:And if the Framers of the Constitution didn't mean for the Congress to have te eauthority to define who is and who isn't a natural born citizen they wouldn't have given them that authority.
Where in the Constitution is Congress given this power? Do you not know the difference between natural born and naturalized?
"The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;"
How do you suppose the Congress is supposed to "establish uniform rules for naturalization" if it can't define who does and doesn't need to be naturalized to begin with?
Quote:Quote:I would also point out that the Constitutional passage you are relying on was written in 1787 and the final document completed the ratification process in 1788 putting that Constitution into effect.
What do you mean "final document"? The document that was written and approved by the Constitutional Convention in 1787 was the exact same document that all 13 of the original states ratified.
BTW: The Constitution had to be ratified by 9 states to take effect. Eleven states had ratified by the end of 1788 and the new government began operation in April 1789. North Carolina didn't ratify until 1789 (it didn't participate in the 1st presidential election) and Rhode Island not until 1790.
Very nice. You do realize that the 1st draft of the Constitution that was created in 1787 wasn't the same as the version that the Constitutional convention approved and submitted to the states for ratification in 1788, right?
Quote:Quote:The very first Congress, comprised of many of those very framers you speak of passed the "Naturalization Act of 1790" in their very first session and defined persons born abroad to parents who were citizens as "natural born".
Then the law was unconstitutional because you cannot be a natural born citizen when you are born outside of the country. The delegates to the Constitutional Convention must have all assumed that the term "natural born" had a common and universally accepted meaning or they would have explained it in the Constitution. The 1st Congress then assumed that it didn't mean what the Convention assumed it did and thus made a law that ran counter to what the Convention wanted.
Or maybe you just don't know what you are talking about? That seems like a much more likely scenario.
The "common and accepted" meanings are what I listed above. The framers knew of both of them.
Your idea that the 1st Congress assumed anything or did something counter to the convention is laughable. 18 members of that 1st Congress were the same people who sat in Philly and wrote that Constitution and Washington, who signed the bill into law as President, also sat at the Philly convention. Is it your position that those 19 people simply "forgot" what they had done?
Quote:And at some point in the past this law was either repealed, amended or struck down by the Courts because someone like the American commander at Gettysburg, General George Gordon Meade, was not a natural born citizen even though both of his parents were U.S. citizens because he was born in Spain. And the subsequent federal law that gave citizenship to people born to a U.S. citizen in the Panama Canal Zone would not have been needed.
So you have a link to his naturalization papers? I can find no record that he was ever considered to be anything other than a natural born citizen of the U.S..
Quote:Quote:Ahhh.. no. There are no residency requirements necessary to retain citizenship. As is usual, you don't know what you are talking about.
There are residency requirements for persons born abroad to have U.S. citizenship at birth:
http://travel.state.gov/law/info/info_609.html
A child who is born in another country is a U.S. citizen at birth if both of his parents are U.S. citizens and at least one of these parents has resided in the U.S. prior to the child's birth.
A child who is born in another country with his parents being married to each other is a U.S. citizen at birth if one of his parents is a U.S. citizen who has resided for in the United States for least 5 years prior to the child's birth (as per the law in 1986 with at least 2 years residency for the parent after reaching the age of 14).
A child born in another country to a father who is a U.S. citizen but whose parents were not married at the time of the child's birth may become a U.S. citizen without any residency requirement for either the child or the parent, but other requirements pertaining to paternity must be legally met.
A child born in another country to a mother who is a citizen of the U.S. but whose parents were not married at the time of the child's birth has U.S. citizenship at birth if the mother had resided for one year prior to the child's birth in either the U.S. or an outlying possession thereof.
Ummm yep... Several mentions of residency there. All of them apply to the
parents of the person being born however. Now where are these residency requirements you babbled about for the actual person born outside of the U.S. to
retain their citizenship? Being entitled to something to begin with and retaining it once you have it are two very different things.
But I will note here that you own link states that, provided the PARENTS have met the residency requirements, the child is granted citizenship AT BIRTH.
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