Actually Obama wouldn’t have been a citizen if he was born abroad; the law at the time said that the mother had to have lived in the US for five years after her 14th birthday, and she was a few months shy of 19 when he was born.
No, it is not.
That’s why this is a news story.
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No suggestion of “Natural-born” either?
The professor makes a great case… if you think the US legal system ought to be stuck 250 years in the past. Otherwise, really, who gives a damn what happened in England 400 years ago?
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Will any candidate, or moderator, have the guts to bring up Señor Cruz’s “birth” issue? If so, could be fun. At least Obama was born in the U.S. Now, if it’s all about being born to an American parent, what was the whole “birther” movement about? Obama’s mother was an American citizen born in Kansas.
No, there is no requirement for timely notification, that’s just nonsense. You don’t get granted or awarded US citizenship that way, you merely get a paper saying that yes, the US Government recognizes that you were born a US citizen.
See https://travel.state.gov/content/passports/en/abroad/events-and-records/birth.html for details.
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Nope. I grew up assuming I could never be president.
I know this is the game lawyers love to play, and they are very good at making up reasons to help their cause, whatever it may be. But for a long time, we’ve treated people in Cruz’s situation exactly like citizens from birth, and a more obvious definition for natural-born citizen cannot be devised. I understand in this instance why many lawyers would want to opine about English historical law and show off not only their scholarship but also their ability to sketch hypotheses about originalist ideas, but, from a commonsense point of view, Cruz was born to an indisputably natural born citizen, and that’s that. He should be kept out of the presidency because he is an odious and hateful demagogue, not because he’s not a “natural-born citizen.”
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and, more importantly, Lincoln.
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Presidential eligibility isn’t dependent on statutory law.
It’s Constitutional, and the statute has no effect on it.
Is it significant that they say “citizen-parents” and not “at least one citizen-parent”?
Everyone here would do well to read this article by Jack Balkin that Josh linked to in another post. It is a clear and complete summary of the various issues involved in sussing out what a “natural born citizen” is.
In fact, I think reading the article should be a prerequisite to posting on the topic.
But in McCain’s case, he was born: 1) In a U.S Territory, the Panama Canal Zone, which at the time was a legal territory of the United State, just as Arizona was when Goldwater was born and just as Puerto Rico is now; and 2) he was born on a U.S. military base, also legally considered to be U.S. territory.
That’s not quite how it works. To be a US citizen born outside the US one has to have a) at least one parent who is a US citizen (though it’s more complicated if only the father is), and b) that parent must have lived in the US for certain number of years after achieving certain age.
It’s extremely unlikely that people who never filed the citizenship paperwork ever lived in the US, so their children could not be US citizens anyway (unless born in the US of course).
I would also argue that such persons do not “claim citizenship”. They are citizens at birth, but it has to be documented. Folks born in the US have their birth certificate, and the Consular Certificate of Birth Abroad is the equivalent for those born outside the US. Look at it this way, if you were born in the US but never had a birth certificate, you might have a hard time proving you’re a US citizen, too.
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The Constitution says only natural born citizens can be President. The statute says who is a citizen. The issue under dispute, which is not resolved in either one, is exactly how a “natural born” citizen differs from any other. As I wrote in the rest of my comment, the clearest explanation is that it means anyone who is a citizen at birth.
ETA: this article that Skippy linked to above says it much more articulately and comprehensively than I can.
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Well, it is a statute, but the point is that this reveals that the attitude of those in the government very near the founding and including some founders felt that this constituted citizenship at birth and it’s hard to argue natural born citizen means anything else with a straight face (unless, of course, you have a legal ax to grind; it’s what lawyers do).
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“Why should American constitutional law in the 21st century depend on what English law from the 1300s?”
The reason is fairly simple to understand. If the words in the Constitution are to mean anything at all, then they must be at least they must be tied to the spirit and context in which they were originally used. This is true, whether you believe in a very restricted “original” interpretation of the meaning of the words in the Constitution or whether you believe in an interpretation of the meaning of the words that allows their meaning to evolve in the context of their “contemporary” legal meaning.
The specific requirements for eligibility for the US Presidency don’t simply demand that a person be a citizen, they specifically require a person to be a “natural born” citizen. The meaning of this common law term dates back to English common law and it is evident that the meaning of the term, as is amply evidenced in virtually all English Common Law as well as in the letters and discussions surrounding the writing of the US Constitution indicate that “natural born” refers specifically to the jurisdiction and sovereignty of the territory where a child is born and not to that of where his parent or parents were born.
There has been much talk about this being an “unsettled” matter of law. However, this is not true, since the US Supreme Court did rule specifically on the question of “natural born” in a case US vs Ark 1898 and specifically researched the meaning of “natural born” in the context of Common law to establish its meaning. After much reference to the meaning of the term in both English Common Law and with respect to its legal meaning at the time the Constitution was written, the Court ruled that “natural born” meant precisely that a person is considered “natural born”, if and only if, they were born within the sovereign territory of the United States. In fact, this is precisely why Mr. Ark won his case, even though both of his parents were Chinese and not Americans. Mr. Ark was born in San Francisco.
It should be noted that in US vs Ark, both the majority and minority opinions came to the same conclusion that “natural born” means specifically that a person is born within the jurisdiction or sovereignty of the United States. It is clear that had Mr. Ark not been born within the jurisdiction of the United States he would have lost his case and would have been deported as the US was trying to do.
It is further worth noting that the Court in US vs Ark also made specifically clear that the US could not simply pass a law, at that time the Chinese Exclusion Act, and use it to alter the meaning of “natural born”. They specifically referenced the fact that since that term was used in the Constitution, its meaning could not be altered by statute alone but would require a Constitutional amendment. The Court ruled that no law can amend the Constitution of the United States and any law that the government may attempt to use to do so is unconstitutional in its application. Congress has the power to naturalize, but it does not have the power to amend the meaning of the constitution via statute.
Legally, since the ruling in US vs Ark remains precedence, Mr. Cruz is ineligible to hold the office of the Presidency because he was born in Calgary, Canada as his Canadian birth certificate clearly demonstrates. He remains in ineligible under US law, at least until he gets a constitutional amendment passed permitting him to do so or he can provide proof that US State Department specifically claimed US jurisdiction over his birth. So far Mr. Cruz has not provided that critical piece of evidence.
The present court may attempt to reverse the precedent. However, to do so it will clearly have to waive the original meaning of the term in the Constitution, previous Supreme Court precedent, and more than 500 years of Common Law to do it.
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I’m still wondering if he is human.
Or some kind of crazed killer robot.
Yeah, we’re in agreement. That doesn’t stopping the MSM from noting that “most legal experts agree” that Cruz’s candidacy is golden.
As far as I recall, the first time it came up was in 2008 with McCain, who (arguably) was born on a military base which has been considered to be American territory. (What if he was born in the American Embassy somewhere?) It first took off because of Oily and Trump and the rest of the birthers, for whom (as I’ve noted) it was critically important that Obama was born in Kenya. Now, not so much.