I went over to Obama Release Your Records this morning to check out something I saw from them about some teacher giving a homework assignment that mentioned “natural born citizen.” When I looked at the headlines on the site, it was depressing to see so much effort put into defaming the President, twisting events to suit a negative agenda, and generally pushing people towards the dark side.
- President Obama’s plan for a socialist America…
- Obama’s forged birth certificate…
- Are we being compromised by Obama’s murky past?
- Obama had Indonesian passport
- Judge Schack A Socialist-Wonder Nutcase
- Obama Identity Document Fraud Case Goes to Court of Special Appeals of Maryland
- Obama Survival Guide
- Analysis of Hawaii Department of Health Loretta Fuddy’s Financial Disclosure Form…fraudulent Long Form
Conspiracy theories I sort of understand: the brain works in particular ways that distort judgment. Trading good for evil, however, is something that is more fundamentally disturbing.
As for the article about the teacher, I did find it. The teacher, according to the article, may have followed a text book that said the qualification for President was a “native-born” citizen. Given that the Oxford English Dictionary gives the same definition for “native born” as “natural-born,” I don’t see what the big deal is—they see it as liberal indoctrination.
There are very few blogs that do not present a biased point of view.
I was just looking at Volokh and found it abounding in the rheroric of the believers and non-believers and the personal allacks on the reverse side of any discussion.
It seems that it is impossible to post a point of view where the opposition, if any, can not resist attacking the posters.
It may be inherent in the web to discuss with slants , or attacks, on the posting with whom you disagree.
I try to post without commenting on the posters, but simply on the postings,.
I now await the personal comments. LOL
As I have mentioned before, I have a copy of a home schooling textbook written by W. Cleon Skousen, founder of the conservative National Center for Constitutional Studies, which explicitly states that the qualifications for President which are listed in Article II, Section 1 ensure that only a “native-born citizen” can become President.
For more than four years birthers have been searching for a textbook which says that a natural-born citizen must have two citizen parents, and the search continues.
ORYR’s denizens would probably commit murder to get what they want, if they thought that they had the slightest chance of succeeding.
And the blog’s founder is perfectly fine with the filth his site attracts. He wasted NO time trying to pin what happened on Boston yesterday, on Obama.
I’m surprised that they haven’t tried pinning every atrocity in mankind’s history on the man.
As to your comments on the teacher’s book defintion, it is a simply statement , that is easily proven to be true.
Are there any births in the USA that are not Natural Born Citizens?
Obviously, there are as the laws specifically refer to children of diplomats accepted as representatives of their governments to the USA.
Their children are not Natural Born Citizens, but maybe native-born citizens with the right to vote, etc.
But, I will admit, I do not know if being born to such a diplomat means that you can not be a citizen at all!
it’s Joe again… What “facts” will he present this time? That native and natural born are used interchangeably is undeniable. Your postings have been “attacked” because they were misleading or just wrong. You have allowed your ignorance and fear to go down a foolish path. Are you up for another educational moment:P
you cannot be a citizen by birth as common law excluded these native borne from being born under jurisdiction. They can still be naturalized…
Anyone born on us soil with noted exceptions are native and natural born this includes our President.
yes there is no historical or legal foundation to require both parents to be citizens.. Yet there are still some who foolishly pursued such a case in court with predictable outcomes.
Sure there’s bias everywhere, but there is a difference between bias and meanness, between point of view, and spite. And sometimes there is out and intentional lying.
What’s depressing is that there seems to be no limit to what they are willing to do in order to prove Obama’s ineligible. Like Terry Lakin.. Trying to argue that a military officer doesn’t have to follow orders unless he’s personally satisfied that the commander in chief is eligible? If that were actually allowed, our military would fall apart. And Birthers are apparently ok with that…
It does. The children of foreign diplomats born in the US are not US citizens.
The problem is that according to the best information I have the historical definition of “native-born” is status at birth, not place of birth. This was very confusing to me for a while because 19th century legal opinions conflated native and natural born. Even the debates on ratification of the Constitution did this. The reason turned out to be that for those people, the two terms meant the same thing: status at birth.
“…intentional lying.”
a perfect comment for ORYR the hate site
also we find simulated reasonableness (i.e.syanomorejoe)
rotfl oryr is a virtual cess pool of hatred and lies.
And , I , of course, would believe differently, As the children,of US citizen parents, born abroad, are US Citizens, but , a child, born abroad, of a US citizen and a non-citizen, are not US citizens, but must be naturalized.
Ergo, the status of the citizen parents conveys the citizenship of their country, but the status on the non-citizen parents does not convey citizenship,.
I was born abroad, in a US Naval Hospital, and my parents were a native born citizen, and an alien mother naturalized by marriage, and was a US citizen at birth, but not a Natural Born Citizen, at least to the best of my knowledge
Now why they considered children born abroad to be citizens if the parents were citizens, but not if one of the parents was an alien is an indication, to me, that they thought that the citizenship of the two parents was more important than the fact that they child was born to an American Citizen.
But the laws may have changed since I was born!
Lying about one’s political opposition and being as nasty as one can possibly be is as American as apple pie.
From the election of 1800:
The Jefferson campaign,:President:John Adams has a “hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.”
The Adams campaign: Thomas Jefferson is: “a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father.”
And so it goes…under the First Amendment.
The Jefferson campaign hired the 19th Century equivalent of a gossip columnist, James Callander as a hatchet man to smear Adams. Later, Callender switched sides and was the first to publish gossip about Jefferson fathering children by his slave, Sally Hemmings, who was, in reality, Jefferson’s deceased wife’s half-sister.
saynomorejoe:
Birth Abroad to One Citizen and One Alien Parent in Wedlock
A child born abroad to one U.S. citizen parent and one alien parent acquires U.S. citizenship at birth under Section 301(g) of the INA provided the U.S. citizen parent was physically present in the United States or one of its outlying possessions for the time period required by the law applicable at the time of the child’s birth. (For birth on or after November 14, 1986, a period of five years physical presence, two after the age of fourteen, is required. For birth between December 24, 1952 and November 13, 1986, a period of ten years, five after the age of fourteen, is required for physical presence in the United States or one of its outlying possessions to transmit U.S. citizenship to the child.) The U.S. citizen parent must be genetically related to the child to transmit U.S. citizenship.
http://travel.state.gov/law/citizenship/citizenship_5199.html
the problem I see is that this is by statute not common law which confuses the issue as to the status if such children. Worse such children do not fall under the 14th amendment.
Dr. C, you could probably spend the rest of your days writing a very good, comprehensive book on the issue, with all the site resources here you now have. If not for the money, just for the satisfaction of setting the record straight. I would do it, if I could.
I do not find these people “depressing”. Depression is a mental illness. These people want us to believe we are living under doomed conditions. I hate to say it but I find them disgusting. I take every word they say personally. If they are capable of falsely accusing and slandering Obama, they are just as capable of directing that abuse at me.
But false accusations ARE depressing, for the victim. I wish Obama would take the opportunity to reform the judiciary in the lower courts. Convictions based on false accusations and no evidence happen all the time, and there are indeed innocent people wasting away in prison who do not have the means to defend themselves.
The major difference between someone acquiring citizenship at birth by jus sanguinis (foreign-born) and someone acquiring ctitzenship at birth by jus soli (native-born) is that the foreign-born require an act of Congress to obtain that citizenship. The jus soli citizenship is via the Constitution, at least since 1868. And, of course, a Congress can change the jus sanguinis requirements if and when they choose, something they cannot do for jus soli. Both of these are natural-born citizenships, in that they are citizenship-at-birth, although derived differently. So, natural-born is a superset of native-born.
As far as I am concerned, the record has long been set straight. I have much more productive plans for the rest of my life.
I did come up with a title for a book, though:
Obama Conspiracy Theories: The Blog that Saved the President
I just love fantastic, over the top headlines.
Could you explain the significance between statute and common law, especially in regard to citizenship?
Donna, I will leave it at this!
that is the law today, not as it was in the past!
I think that the problem lies in the fact that the SCOTUS has never ruled on the native-natural wording when the President was one of the parties to the actions.
And it is especially difficult when the question comes up after a President is elected!
It is easy to determine the citizenship of Joe Blow as to whether or not he can vote in an election, but, damn hard to make that decision when it comes to a pending presidency or a existing presidency.
Until that is accomplished nothing will be solve as support varies depending upon which side of the bench you are on!
Native and natural have different meanings as adjectives depending on the noun they are modifying. And that , again, is a matter of subjective beliefs
he is a natural genius, and a native genius, two completely different things.
He is a Native Amercan Natural Treasure
He is a Native American or a Natural American?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Convention_on_the_Reduction_of_Statelessness
Ok, I’ll comment only on your postings too…
They are racially motivated pieces of crap, with no basis in reality.
“When I looked at the headlines on the site, it was depressing to see so much effort put into defaming the President, twisting events to suit a negative agenda, and generally pushing people towards the dark side.”
Dr. C.’s comment reminded me of a book about North Korea that I just finished reading called “The Cleanest Race.” Among other things, the author describes how the North Korean government promotes hatred and fear of the United States in order to create a symbolic enemy that can be blamed for everything from famine, to bad weather, to disobedient children. Portraying the U.S. as a source of ultimate evil also gives the government permission to pursue a military-first domestic policy that does little to alleviate suffering in the countryside. Paradoxically, while the U.S. is portrayed as being very powerful, it also pictured as being terrified of North Korea, and despite it’s power, essentially inept. Finally, in their history of the Korean War, the North Koreans say that it was the United States and South Korea that invaded them, not the other way around.
North Korea’s demonization of the U.S., its penchant for rewriting history, and its tendency to simultaneous describe the U.S. as a rapacious all-powerful enemy AND a bungling coward, reminds me of the paranoid and contradictory way in which birthers write about President Obama.
—
I think Donna was addressing your situation, not the President’s situation. That law is for people born abroad, and does not apply to President Obama who was born in the USA.
natural born was left undefined in the constitution thus its meaning was to be found in common law which was birth of soil under jurisdiction. Birth abroad was governed by statute not common law.
exactly.. And the court did address the issue inwong Kim ark
saynomorejoe: Until that is accomplished nothing will be solve as support varies depending upon which side of the bench you are on!
25+ TIMES the supremes have denied cert – NOT ONE asked for papers from respondents and ONLY ONE is needed
there WERE NOT FOUR to grant cert
TEN courts have ruled that obama is a NBC
isn’t is OBVIOUS that the supremes have “ruled” “on the native-natural wording”?????
PERHAPS (wink wink) when ted cruz, born in canada to a cuban father, runs for president, they will rules on his “native-natural” status
PERHAPS they will rule that there IS a separate classification of citizenship for presidents & VPs
i can hardly wait for the milllions of people who will fall outside of that third classification and would be eliminated as eligible to become plaintiffs
J.D. Sue: I think Donna was addressing your situation, not the President’s situation.
correct – he mentioned his situation – we all know obama was born here and is eligible no matter if he fell off a turnip truck in front of a hospital with parents unknown
I have no idea why your comments are going into moderation all of a sudden.
That is not generally true, see 8 USC 1401:
As for you personally, I don’t know any mainstream constitutional scholar or court decision that would say that you aren’t a natural born citizen under the circumstances you state.
Yes, however for a middle school assignment, they would not get into the technical nitty-gritty, and I can understand why. There are two main exceptions to the “born in the United States” rule.
1. Children of U.S. Diplomats – Not born to the jurisdiction of the United States, as they have diplomatic immunity.
2. Children born of invading soldiers who are born in foreign occupied territory – As the United States does not have jurisdiction over them either.
Both of these are clearly addressed in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark which is the case law that defines this.
Actually, that’s not true. The child of a foreign diplomat is not a citizen of the United States at all.
This just tells me that you haven’t read U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark.
dunstvangeet: This just tells me that you haven’t read U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark
WKA? not allowed in birtherstan – it’s as if that precedent doesn’t exist
Birthers are Machiavellian. Anything is justified as long as the hated usurper is removed from office, even if the country and the constitution are destroyed in the process.
wka is poorly understood by birthers but not by the legal branch
Yoda April 16, 2013 at 5:41 pm (Quote) #
Birthers are Machiavellian. Anything is justified as long as the hated usurper is removed from office, even if the country and the constitution are destroyed in the process.
And realist (versus idealist) Machiavelli was self-admittedly proud to emulate the “authoritarian” literary style of Moses where lies are an art form, and a form of warfare. Note the contradiction between “authoritarian” and lies. Lies are better than bombs, according to Machiavelli, and this is true in warfare. But lies are still lies.
From the Prince (by Machiavelli): “You must be a great liar. A deceitful man will always find plenty who are willing to be decieved.”
(Please keep in mind with this link that I am sharing internet with a 16-yr-old High School student and I have noticed my Google searches are most unscholarly as a result…but this one seems ok).
http://www.law.asu.edu/files/!NoTemplate/AALS/Reilly.pdf
I think a problem arises from too narrow an understanding of the word “native”. U.S. law certainly doesn’t view it in a strictly geographical sense.
what about common law?
I don’t think the common law is either necessary or of any avail in understanding the meaning of “native” in current U.S. law. There are enacted, codified statutes that provide plenty of context. There’s 8 USC 1101(a)(23):
“The term “naturalization” means the conferring of nationality of a state upon a person after birth, by any means whatsoever.”
Then there is, for example, from 8 USC 1435(a)(2):
“…Such person, or any person who was naturalized in accordance with the provisions of section 317(a) of the Nationality Act of 1940, shall have, from and after her naturalization, the status of a native-born or naturalized citizen of the United States, whichever status existed in the case of such person prior to the loss of citizenship: Provided, That nothing contained herein or in any other provision of law shall be construed as conferring United States citizenship retroactively upon such person, or upon any person who was naturalized in accordance with the provisions of section 317(a) of the Nationality Act of 1940, during any period in which such person was not a citizen”
which refers to “the status of a native-born or naturalized citizen of the United States,” and, incidentally, no third category no matter how hard Leo the Parakeet tried to educe one from it.
And then from 8 USC 1481, which is titled “Loss of nationality by native-born or naturalized citizen; voluntary action; burden of proof; presumptions”, there’s
“(a) A person who is a national of the United States whether by birth or naturalization, shall lose his nationality by voluntarily performing any of the following acts with the intention of relinquishing United States nationality…”
which apposes the “native-born or naturalized citizen” of the title to “A person who is a national of the United States whether by birth or naturalization.”
That all seems to me to pretty plainly indicate that the word “native” is not applied in a strictly geographical sense; but refers to a relationship founded upon a broader range of circumstances of birth.
Now if you want to broaden the range of the conversation to what “native” means in relation to the meaning of “natural born”, well, then the common law may very well be relevant. That’s not my intention here, and I’m confining myself to the statutory meaning of the word.
Take it from me, a U. of Arizona alumnus and fan, that your caveat about the scholarship of a paper originating at Arizona State is extremely perceptive.
However, even I must admit that Scum Devil scholarship is light-years beyond anything that the birthers try to fob off.
(after another glance I notice that the article may be a mirror of a Harvard paper… there is actually an epithet from the Simpsons (I think) that compares ASU to Harvard, but I don’t think it would improve your 16yo’s mind if I repeated it).
What I had in mind wasn’t on the Simpson’s it was on The Daily Show
As a fellow UA alum I would tend to agree with your position. However, the Bilderbergs are a House Divided; one of my kids is a Wildcat and the other is a Sun Devil. The Thanksgiving weekend is always … um, interesting.
My sympathies, but don’t blame yourself.
Sometimes a kid just has to rebel for the sake of rebelling. And anyway, I hear that careers at McDonald’s can be very rewarding.
that’s a problem since the meaning of the term comes from common law at least as far as the constitutional meaning is concerned. Statutes cannot define constitutional terms beyond their common law interpretation
The 14th amendment recognizes two sources of citizenship: birth or naturalization on soil. This means that those born or naturalized outside the US, do not have the same 14th Amendment citizenship protection, even though in principle they share the same rights of those native born or naturalized on soil.
I do not think we can logically extend native born to mean born outside the country but we can accept that a state has the right to extend citizenship to such people, when one or more of the parents is a US citizen. Although there is still a difference between if the mother or the father is the citizen in question…
Personally I do not believe that there exists good legal foundation to conclude that children born abroad to US citizen parents are ‘natural born’ but I understand that there are good reasons as to why to include them, even though I am not sure if the courts have ever had to address such issues.
These are interesting issues of minor importance at this moment but eventually they will come up again. McCain was closest as he was born outside the US and his ‘citizenship’ was granted retroactively through an act of congress.
I am not sure if congress can extend the meaning of natural born as used in the Constitution.
Don’t be too depressed over ORYR Doc, it’s a sad and pathetic little extreme-fringe website that most actual human beings will never see or care about, with a tiny and dwindling “audience” consisting of the mentally ill, racists, and just plain disturbed individuals who probably never interact with the real world.
Denialists are simply miserable people. They’re the ones who blame others for their self-made problems.
If it wasn’t for _________ , I’d have a job, have a better car, live in a nicer neighborhood…
If you were not a citizen at birth, you would have gone through a naturalization process. Do you remember doing this? Not likely, because it’s unnecessary. You’re a natural born citizen. There are only two types of citizens, natural born and naturalized. You’re saying you were a citizen at birth who needed to naturalize later and there’s no such category.
I took this definition from a Congress for Kids site because the definition is so cut and dry.
Derivative Citizenship
Through their parents’ naturalization, some children become U.S. citizens automatically, or “derivatively.” Laws about “derivative citizenship” vary depending upon the date the parent(s) were naturalized.
Children become U.S. citizens derivatively through their parents’ naturalization as long as all of the following requirements are met before the child’s 18th birthday.
At least one parent is a U.S. citizen,
The child is under 18 years of age, and
The child is admitted to the United States as an immigrant.
Acquired Citizenship
A child might have “acquired” U.S. citizenship at birth without knowing, or without the parents knowing, if they were born outside the United States and either parent was a U.S. citizen when the child was born. This might also be true even if neither parent was born in the United States, but one or more of the grandparents were. This is an extremely complicated area of immigration law.
Orly Taitz says her children aren’t natural born citizens, either, but she couldn’t tell me when they naturalized or at least ignored my question. Since my niece and nephew were born overseas in the U.K. to my brother and sister-in-law, I know what they did after they were born in order to re-enter the U.S. They went to the U.S. Embassy with appropriate I.D. for the family and the children’s birth certificates and the kids were issued U.S. passports because they are considered natural born citizens. When my sister-in-law asked about their citizenship status, the person she was speaking to at the Embassy said that ever since all this nonsense regarding President Obama’s birthplace started, there have been people suddenly inquiring as to their children’s status despite the fact that for years everyone understood that if you were born to a citizen of the U.S. who happened to be overseas at the time of birth, you were still considered to be a natural born citizen.
Except that their site ranking is hugely higher than mine (which has fallen a lot). According to Alexa.com, ORYR’s traffic increased 11% over the past 3 months, roughly tracking Orly’s site. I used to track with Orly, but I’ve literally dropped off the chart.
BTW, Alexa says the ORYR’s clientele are disproportionately older male college dropouts with no kids accessing the site from home.
Do recall Doc that these are figures generated primarily by those individuals who are stupid/foolish/gullible enough to download the Alexa tool bar. Yes Alexa says now they use “more data sources” without actually saying how many, how accurate or what said sources are……
Since the vast majority of the web population don’t use it AND the figures it generates are regarded as statistically of little probative value for low traffic sites I would take any rating with a massive overdose of salt…..
Alexa’s description should be emended to read “disproportionately older male college dropouts with no kids accessing the site from home . . . who are consumed by anger, deluded by hate, and delighted by the thought of dealing imprisonment and death to their enemies.” To that, you could add that they can’t get along with their family and friends. See for example, the opening comments to ORYR’s latest article:
“I’ve been waiting since november 16 2008 for obum to be arrested. I knew then he was a fraud as I destroyed my bathroom door after an argument with my brain washed parents. The biggest fraud, con man ever and I was right.”
and,
“Many times I found myself screaming at the top of my lungs to friends who understood the forgeries but just shrugged their shoulders. Never give up!
We WILL nail this POS and EVERYONE who aid and abetted the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people!”
nbc, the word “native” doesn’t appear in the U.S. Constitution. There most certainly is a statutory definition of “naturalization” which is definitely at odds with the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Constitutional sense of the word, and it has stood for over seventy-two years.
I’ll quote from “Revision and Codification of the Nationality Laws of the United States, Part 1, Sections of the Proposed Code with Explanatory Comments (pages 3-4):
“The term “naturalization” means the conferring of nationality of a state upon a person after birth. This definition, while expressly limited to the use of the term “for the purposes of this act,” relates to naturalization in foreign states as well as in the United States. Thus it is applicable to the provision of section 401 that an American national shall lose his American nationality by “obtaining naturalization in a foreign state.”
“Naturalization,” according to the usual acceptation of the term in the United States, undoubtedly means the grant of a new nationality to a natural person after birth. (Cooley, Principles of Constitutional Law, 88; Osborne v. Bank, 9 Wheat. 827; 9 Op. Att’y Gen. 859). The term is not ordinarily applied to the conferring of the nationality of a state, jure sanguinis, at birth, upon a child born abroad. It has sometimes been contended that the power conferred by section 8 of article I of the Constitution “to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization” included the power to provide for acquisition of nationality at birth by children born abroad to citizens of the United States, and this contention finds some in the fact that the first naturalization act of the United States, which was passed by the first Congress, that is, the act of March 26, 1790, entitled “An act to establish an Uniform Rule of Naturalization” (1 Stat. 108), contained a provision that
the children of citizens of the United States that may be born beyond Sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born Citizens: Provided, that the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States.
It is interesting to note, however, that the statute declares that such children shall be “considered as natural born citizens.” Whether the term “natural born citizen,” as used in section 1 of article II of the Constitution, with reference to eligibility to the office of President of the United States, includes persons born abroad to citizens of the United States is still a subject of debate.
From the discussion in the Convention of the Constitutional provision in question it is apparent that the framers of the Constitution were principally concerned with the desirability of making it clear that the acquisition of citizenship of the United States should be governed by a single Federal law and not left to diverse laws of the various States of the Union, the provision in the Articles of Confederation having proved most unsatisfactory. The members seem to have had in mind, primarily at least, the matter of conferring citizenship after birth, through the process of naturalization, upon aliens who should have taken up their abode in the United States, since mention was made of the fact that in some of the States under the Confederation a long period of residence was required before citizenship was granted, while in others it was granted immediately or very shortly after arrival. A uniform rule seemed desirable. (The Papers of James Madison (1840), vol. H, pp. 1274, 1300; The Federalist, A New Edition (1818), No. XLII, pp. 267-268; Story on the Constitution, ch. XVI; Warren, The Making of the Constitution, p. 480. See also Passenger Cases, 7 How. 282, 482). It may be possible to hold, however, that the Convention, when using the expression “an uniform rule of naturalization” contemplated a broader use of the term “naturalization” than that which is now ordinarily applied, and that it intended to cover cases in which citizenship might be conferred by statute at birth upon children born to citizens of the United States in foreign lands. The latter view was expressed in the opinion of Chief Justice Waite in Minor v. Happersett, 1874, 88 U.S. 102, 168, and in the opinion of Justice Gray in US. v. Wong Kim Ark, 1898, 100 U.S. 69,679 70-708.
Even if it is true that the term naturalization” in section 8 of article I of the Constitution should be construed broadly, it does not follow that in the proposed new act the narrower meaning indicated by the definition under discussion cannot properly be used, especially as this meaning is now universally attributed to the word. Certainly in recent years, at least, persons who were born abroad of citizens of the United States and who acquired citizenship of the United States at birth, under the provision of section 1993 of the Revised Statutes, have never been termed “naturalized citizens.” On the other hand, the Naturalization Act of June 29, 1906, is entitled “An act to establish a Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization and to provide for a uniform rule for the naturalization of aliens throughout the United States” (34 Stat. 596).”
That’s from “Nationality Laws of the United States- Message from the President of the United States Transmitting a Report Proposing a Revision and Codification of the Nationality Laws of the United States, Prepared at the Request of the President of the United States, by the Secretary of State, the Attorney General, and the Secretary of Labor”, submitted to President Roosevelt on June 1, 1938:
http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/files/1940nat-act-comm-print-pt-1a.pdf
I’d be interested in seeing that law.
That sentence should read
It has sometimes been contended that the power conferred by section 8 of article I of the Constitution “to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization” included the power to provide for acquisition of nationality at birth by children born abroad to citizens of the United States, and this contention finds some support…etc.
yes the naturalization powers were used to make foreign born children to us parents citizens and even natural born a qualifier quickly removed and possibly acindentally added.
jus sanguinis requires an act of congress under the constitutional power to provide for uniform rules. But that could not make such children natural or even native born.
Native and natural have been used interchangeably as they largely overlap. Born under jurisdiction is the other requirement for natural born status.
14th amendment even limits its citizenship to those born ot naturalized in the us, excluding those born or naturalized outside.
Still this is atricky area of law. The use of naturalization powers in 1795 clearly suggests to me that such children were naturalized.
The ruling in WKA hinted that children born to us citizens abroad may not be eligible. See the comments by the dissenting judge. It would seem weird that a constitutional term can be extended by statute.
I could not agree more with your last sentence there.
I really intended, as I said, to confine myself to the meaning of the word “native”, but I’d like to point out that the fact that persons born in the United States but not subject to its jurisdiction are not native born for purposes of citizenship only reinforces the point that the word “native” would not be applied in a strictly geographical sense.
And if I may say so, I’ve always admired your consistency and forthright honesty on the subject. You certainly never tried to jump through that flaming birther hoop of an imaginary foreign birth with an imaginary eligibility between your teeth.
Now regarding the 14th Amendment, I’ll quote from Justice Black’s dissent in Rogers v. Bellei:
“The majority opinion appears at times to rely on the argument that Bellei, while he concededly might have been a naturalized citizen, was not naturalized ‘in the United States.’ This interpretation obviously imposes a limitation on the scope of the Citizenship Clause which is inconsistent with the conclusion expressed above that the Fourteenth Amendment provides a comprehensive definition of American citizenship, for the majority’s view would exclude from the protection of that Clause all those who acquired American citizenship while abroad. I cannot accept the narrow and extraordinarily technical reading of the Fourteenth Amendment employed by the Court today. If, for example, Congress should decide to vest the authority to naturalize aliens in American embassy officials abroad rather than having the ceremony performed in this country, I have no doubt that those so naturalized would be jsut as fully protected by the Fourteenth Amendment as are those who go through our present naturalization procedures. Rather than the technical reading adopted by the majority, it is my view that the word ‘in’ as it appears in the phrase ‘in the United States’ was surely meant to be understood in two somewhat different senses: one can become a citizen of this country by being born within it or by being naturalized into it. This interpretation is supported by the legislative history of the Citizenship Clause. That clause was added in the Senate rather late in the debates on the Fourteenth Amendment, and as originally introduced its reference was to all those ‘born in the United States or naturalized by the laws thereof.’ Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., 2768. (Emphasis added.) The final version of the Citizenship Clause was undoubtedly intended to have this same scope. See Flack, supra, at 88—89.”
While I agree that in the Constitutional sense, it is clear that persons who acquire their citizenship at birth by any other means than birth in the United States are naturalized, I don’t think it’s so clear that the meaning of “naturalized in the United States” is so narrowly confined.
Doc, discussing your original point, about being depressed about the survival of lies:
Lies, unfortunately, are very survivable. Look at the horrors inflicted with anti-Semitism — those lies have survived for nearly 2,000 years, and if you visit some web pages, they’re flourishing.
Whether their supporters are people who are mentally ill, ignorant, stupid, cynical, criminal, or egotistical con men, they go on and on and on.
You cannot take it personally, and you have to realize that you are not going to be able to convince a number of these people…Orly Taitz will never drop her claims, apologize for her behavior, and go into rehab. Not going to happen.
30 years from now, she’ll be furiously zooming around a nursing home in her wheelchair, imperilling the staff, filing lawsuits, even though Obama is no longer president. She’ll never stop.
It’s the same thing with the senior Klukkers and neo-Nazis: William Pierce, Richard Girnt Butler, J.T. Ready…they were only abated by death. The lesser lights who get nailed and go to prison, like Matthew Hale or David Duke, they just get their megaphone reduced. What you can hope for is that their followers realize the error of their ways, and rise up from stupidity. This does happen…the Southern Poverty Law Center regularly runs interviews with people who have quit the Klan or the neo-Nazis, realizing how stupid the whole thing was, or how destructive.
The good news is that Orly and her pals have very little impact on the real world…yes, they drive lawyers and judges to distraction, make them waste their time, jam up courts, and slow down cases.
But let’s look at what is NOT happening…President Obama has not been impeached or dragged out of the White House in chains by irritated sheriffs’ deputies. He has NOT had to take the stand and do the “Darrow-Bryan” scene that Orly and her pals want to act out. Her cases have NOT been heard beyond judges tossing them out. Her rallies are attended by anywhere from two to 10 people…NOT the millions of torch-brandishing hordes she dreams of. She is NOT given airtime or column space by the media, except as an object or ridicule or amusement. She is NOT a household name. She will NOT be honored in her entire lifetime, by any reputable organization.
And when she dies, she will be forgotten, except by a few cranks…nobody remembers Charles Coughlin, Martha Anderson, Midge Gillars, Donald Day, William Dudley Pelley, Fritz Kuhn, Elizabeth K. Dilling, or William Joyce any more.
Barack Obama will be remembered as long as the Republic lives…eventually he’ll be on a postage stamp, his home will be a National Park Service site, and there’ll be schools and buildings named after him.
Hey, 20 minutes ago, I just purchased a sheet of stamps honoring Rosa Parks. Everybody knows about Rosa Parks, who she was, and what she did. Nobody remembers who sat down and wrote the law in Montgomery, Alabama, that decreed buses should be segregated in the first place.
Think about that for a while.
I can’t remember which birther site, but I read “Is Boston Obama’s 911?” Can you believe those idiots are trying to liken 3000 killed to the 3 in this situation. Not that one set of deaths is more important than the other, which it isn’t, but all terrorist attacks are not created equal.
In their desparation to say anything negative about President Obama, this is what they’ve come up with….
If it is a tragedy, and people(especially children) died, most birthers call it a “false flag” operation, and that all the victims were actors. The whole lot of them are probably holocaust deniers too.
…nor the name of the bus driver.
The nation’s first black president. First Seder in the White House. Brokered an apology from Israel to Turkey.
And biographies by the dozens.
But they found, restored, and preserved the bus, which sits in Henry Ford’s Greenfield Village, in sparkling condition, as both a monument to an event that changed world history…and a piece of nostalgia for public transportation in the 1950s.
Don’t forget Obama Care, and the surprising Nobel Peace Prize.
And the Honorary Degree from Arizona Sta… what?
Oh.
Never mind.
Interesting dissent… The courts are still struggling I believe with this area of citizenship/naturalization.
My goal is to try to establish the foundation of the status of children born abroad to US citizen parent(s).
In the end I have little doubts that a court would find them eligible even though I believe there exists some real foundation for my arguments that suggests that they may have been naturalized at birth or that they are not natural born citizens. Sounds unfair in many circumstances though but they are not born under US jurisdiction.
To me its an interesting exercise in learning more.
That’s another point I don’t get. If I were to construct a claim that Sandy Hook was a “false flag”, I’d only have to claim the shooter was some Navy SEAL acting on instructions from the government. I wouldn’t have to claim that actually nobody was killed. In fact, the former version would attribute even more malice to “ebil gubnment” because it would claim “they” are willing to shoot dozens of children to enforce their devious plans.
I can’t fathom why the conspiracist version requires so many co-conspirators. Is it because it wouldn’t be a real conspiracy theory if it implied only a handful of participants? Is it the subconscious fear that if they claimed one conspiracy required only a few people involved, their other theories requiring thousands of people (Moon Landing Hoax, 9/11, Birtherism) would somehow lose credibility?
Now don’t forget my qualifier there, “in the Constitutional sense”.