But then I read the wikipedia natural born citizen, entry. It took me a few readings spread out over a couple of days for me to understand what natural born citizen meant. Our founding FATHERS (with my apologies to those of American Indian descent) did not want american born citizens eligible to become president if their parents (actually just the father) were not at the very least naturalized citizens of the United States. A child born to foreigners on American soil would still be a naturalized citizen, but the child would not be a natural born citizen, and therefore not eligible to be either president or vice-president. Should this child grow up and have children with another US citizen, those children would be natural born. This is all very logical. Natural Born means the birth is a natural result of two naturalized citizens living in the United States and then having a child.
But what if only one parent is a Naturalized US citizen? Does it matter which parent is a naturalized US citizen when it comes to determining if a child born on US soil or territories is either a naturalized citizen, or, a natural born citizen? According to the World Book 1962 edition, Before 1922, a women's citizenship usually changed with that of her husband. Ergo, the founding Fathers were referring to the father being a Naturalized US citizen for his son or daughter to be a natural born citizen.
Our Founding FATHERS didn't seem to think that women were completely equal to men when the constitution was established. Our Founding FATHERS accepted slavery and did not allow slaves or women the right to vote, once again a sign they very protective of who could vote on important issues such as the presidential race.
Wikipedia presents an interesting case study...
Chester A. Arthur (1829-1886), 21st president of the United States, might have been born in Canada.[21] This was never demonstrated by his political opponents, although they raised the objection during his vice-presidential campaign. He was born to a U.S.-citizen mother and a father from Ireland who was eventually naturalized as a U.S. citizen. Arthur was sworn in as president when President Garfield died after being shot.The key to this passage is "a father from Ireland who was eventually naturalized as a U.S. citizen. Even though the mother was already a US naturalized citizen, it wasn't until Garfield's father became naturalized that Chester Arthur could lay claim to being a natural born citizen.
If Chester Arthur was born in the United States, but his father had never become a US citizen, Chester Arthur would NOT have been eligible to BE (not run for, but be) either president or vice president of the United States irrespective of his mother's citizenship. While objections were raised over where Chester Arthur was born, the biggest issue appears to be establishing who the heck his father's allegiance/citizenship was with. This is key to the entire issue. If Dad's citizenship matters in determining natural born status for Chester Arthur, then it matters when defining Barack Obama's citizen status as well. Don't think for a minute that if a foreigner came to America, implanted his seed in an american female naturalized citizen, and then left after a couple of years, that our founding FATHERS would consider that child a natural born citizen. The child would be a naturalized citizen, but not a natural born citizen.
Otherwise, were Osama Bin Laden to sneak into the U.S. and impregnant a US naturalized female, the child could grow up to be president one day, that's why the natural born citizen law was put into effect by our founding fathers.
Barack Obama IS a naturalized citizen, he is NOT a natural born citizen because of his father lack of naturalized citizenship.
Isn't it ironic that in the mid 90's Barack Obama himself appears to have ignored his dying mother so he could fly to Bali to finish his long delayed first book about his sperm donor father, yet now Barack Obama must COMPLETELY depend on his mummy's citizenship in an effort to declare himself a natural born citizen.
Not only did Barack Obama Sr. never become a US citizen, Barack Obama Sr. would eventually become a Kenyan Political consultant, which would absolutely result in Barack Obama NOT being eligible for natural born citizenship, if Barack Obama Sr had already landed that job while Barack Obama was being birthed. Political operatives of other countries CANNOT create a natural born citizen in the United States irrespective of the mothers U.S. natural citizenship, they can however help create a naturalized citizen of the united states.
The Barack Obama "Bro's before Ho's" campaign should be extinguished by the fact that Barack Obama's father was NOT a US citizen and therefore Barack Obama is not a natural born citizen, a fact that should elicit some chuckling from Alice Walker and other politicians whom in the past Barack Obama has managed to have disqualified for technical reasons far less egregious than not being a natural born citizen.
Lets just hope the Supreme Court is not afraid to do the right and constitutionally lawful thing before Barack Obama is sworn into office.
Are there any US presidents whose father was NOT a naturalized U.S. citizen? If there have not been any prior to Barack Obama, than Barack Obama's father would be the first, and would lend credence to the idea that clearly Barack Obama IS a naturalized citizen, he's just NOT a natural born citizen and therefore not elegible to be either president or vice president of the United States of America.
11 comments:
Challenge, can anyone prove this wrong?:–
1. Constitution Article II requires USA President to be “natural born citizen”.
2. BHO’s website admits his dad was Kenyan/British, not American, citizen when BHO was born.
3. BHO is therefore not a “natural born citizen” (irrespective of Hawaiian birth or whether he may be a 14th Amendment “citizen” of USA) — as confirmed in the Senate’s own McCain qualification resolution agreed to by BHO.
4. Supreme Court has already docketed two upcoming conferences, 1/9/09 and 1/16/09 — between dates Congress counts electoral votes (1/8/09) and Presidential inauguration (1/20/09) — to address Berg Case and fashion relief on BHO’s eligibility to be President.
5. Since no facts are in dispute, Supreme Court rules on Summary Judgment to enjoin BHO’s inauguration as President.
6. Therefore, BHO is not inaugurated as President.
7. Vice President Elect Biden is inaugurated Acting President under the 20th Amendment to serve until new President is determined — the procedure for which determination to be set out by Congress and/or the Supreme Court so long as in conformance with the Constitution.
ANSWER TO ABOVE CHALLENGE
IF when counting the electoral votes, Congress were to find by 1/8/09 that Obama -- not being an Article II “natural born citizen” -- fails to qualify as President Biden would become a full fledged President under 3 USC 19 (free to pick his own VP such as Hillary) AND THERE WOULD BE NO DEFERRAL TO THE SUPREME COURT to enjoin Obama’s inauguration with Biden becoming only an Acting President under the 20th Amendment until a new President were duly determined.
(The preferable choice, at least for the Democrats, would seem obvious.)
(woops, add a comma)
ANSWER TO ABOVE CHALLENGE
IF when counting the electoral votes, Congress were to find by 1/8/09 that Obama -- not being an Article II “natural born citizen” -- fails to qualify as President, Biden would become a full fledged President under 3 USC 19 (free to pick his own VP such as Hillary) AND THERE WOULD BE NO DEFERRAL TO THE SUPREME COURT to enjoin Obama’s inauguration with Biden becoming only an Acting President under the 20th Amendment until a new President were duly determined.
(The preferable choice, at least for the Democrats, would seem obvious.)
Alessandro seems to have some confusion between "natural born" and "naturalized". ANYONE can be a "naturalized" citizen, that is something you DO. "Natural born" is something you ARE.
So why wouldn't the Supreme Court give Donofrio a hearing? Wasn't he making essentially this same argument? If the Supreme Court thought it had any merit, there was their chance to show it.
It has been known for years that Obama's father was a noncitizen. If mainstream legal opinion considered that to disqualify him as a natural-born citizen, the issue would have arisen early in his run for the Democratic nomination, if not before.
The Supreme Court is really unlikely to set aside the results of a national election on the basis of a shaky and highly disputable re-definition of "natural-born". It would have to be something completely unambiguous in the Constitution itself.
No one would be happier than I to see Obama disqualified from the Presidency. But this simply does not look as if it has any substance to it.
prpiner, I did confuse the terms naturalized citizen and natural born citizen in a couple of places and corrected it.
The message is still the same however, Nobody can be natural born if their father is not a naturalized citizen of the United States.
(OT-sorry)
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Re: “Our founding FATHERS (with my apologies to those of American Indian descent) did not want american born citizens eligible to become president if their parents were not at the very least citizens of the United States. A child born to foreigners on American soil would still be a naturalized citizen, but the child would not be a natural born citizen, and therefore not eligible to be either president or vice-president.”
This is one THEORY but it is very debatable. Seven presidents and several vice presidents and even more presidential candidates have had parents who were born outside of the USA. Andrew Jackson and James Buchanan had TWO parents who were born outside of the USA.
It is said by the proponents of the two-parent theory that ALL of these were naturalized before the children were born. But there is actually no hard evidence for this. And where Jackson was concerned it simply did not matter. He was born before the Constitution, so there was no requirement that he had to be even a Natural Born citizen.
But what does this say about the people who wrote the Constitution? Were they REALLY concerned that the people who became president had loyal roots? If so, they would have insisted that even the people born before the Constitution had to be natural born. But they did not do that, and by the way, they allowed even the Tories who fought against the Revolution to be president, so they were not all that concerned about even the loyalty of adults.
If the writers of Article II of the Constitution were really clear that two parents had to be US citizens as well as the child be born on US territory, they would have said: “Two US parents as well as the child be born on US territory.” Instead, they said “natural born,” which could merely mean born on US territory, OR have two US parents, or possibly both—but that is the least likely of the three possibilities. Since they knew very well that the question could arise, and future generations would be seeking for a definition, why didn’t they provide the definition? Because they thought that future generations would be perfectly capable of finding the definition for themselves.
What is the definition? Well, first, should it be set by 18th century law? No, because subsequent amendments affect the Constitution. The 14th Amendment in particular, says “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.” This is partial evidence that simply birth in the USA is the equivalent of a “natural born” citizen. To be sure, a person that the law considers a US “citizen at birth” under Title 8 of US Code, is not NECESSARILY the same thing as a “natural born citizen” under Article II.
On the other hand, this might well be the case, and why not?
Getting back to the historical argument. It is NOT true that the writes of Article II of the Constitution were particularly concerned about divided loyalties. They could have barred traitors during the Revolution from being president, but they didn’t. They could have barred Tories, but they didn’t. They could have barred murderers or felons or persons with dual nationality, but they didn’t.
Proponents of the two-parent theory hold that the writers of Article II of the Constitution were particularly concerned about loyalty and divided loyalty. There is NO evidence of this. And, if there was, the writers were VERY aware that the parents of the candidate had little or no impact on the loyalty of the adult. Benedict Arnold was either a second or third generation American on both sides, and he was born in America.
Moreover, the requirement that both parents be US citizens leads us into all kind of logical issues. If the naturalization of parents is sufficient, does this mean that a candidate whose parent or parents were naturalized before she was born is better than one whose parent or parents were naturalized after she was born? If you say: “Yes, legally,” then the reply is another question: “Yes, but what about REALLY?” After all, you have to prove that the writers of Article II were REALLY concerned about the REAL effect of the nationality of the parents on their children and not merely concerned about setting down a rule.
That being the case, isn’t there far more evidence that the writers wanted the limits on who could be president to be set as low as possible far higher than the evidence that they wanted the limits on who could be president to be as high as possible? Consider the lack of barriers to traitors or Tories or felons.
The next question is whether the writers of Article II wanted the candidates to prove their “natural born” status to a court. If so, why not say: “They have to prove it to a federal court (or to the Supreme Court)” Or, could the question of who is a natural born citizen be settled by ordinary voters? Okay, it is possible that ordinary voters make mistakes, but then so do courts.
In the past election, the issue of Obama’s place of birth and his parentage was not a very strong issue. Not as strong as the economy, certainly. But it was raised. We did know that some people believe that Obama was not born in Hawaii (very wrongly by the way). And we did know that some people believe that you have to have two US parents as well as be born in the USA to be president. We went and voted for Obama anyway, and that could be considered a kind of court. Did the writers of Article II specifically say that Federal Courts could overrule the people if they decided that a person with one parent who was not a citizen could be president? No. Did they write Article II in such a way as to allow us to believe that they allowed the VOTERS to decide between the two-parent theory and the merely-born-in-the-USA theory? Yes.
Two of the Supreme Court justices who presumably would be hearing the question of whether Obama was natural born, had fathers who were born in Italy. It is likely, though I could not find out either way, that the fathers were naturalized before the future justices were born. This would make them eligible to be president. But they are likely keep in mind their friends and relatives, some of whom may have been born AFTER their parents were naturalized. And these justices will keep asking this question: Are these people any more loyal than the ones whose parents were naturalized before they were born?” And then they will ask, “and what evidence is there that the writers of Article II did not know that the loyalty of people whose parents were naturalized after is the same as those whose were naturalized before?” And then they will rule for the most liberal of the possible definitions of Natural Born, which is that it is a synonym for “a citizen at birth” under Title 8 of the US Code.
That, of course, is IF the thing ever comes to trial. Most likely these two justices would also vote not even to take up the issue, and so there would not even be four votes for the Supreme Court to hear the case. There is, I think, a remote chance that they will hear the case, say one in twenty, and after that, one in 50 or less that the strict “natural born” theory (meaning two parents plus born in the USA) will be upheld.
to smrstrauss:
Thank you for taking the time and thought to submit such logical and clearly written comments. One only wishes more of those who blog and comment would do the same.
I agree with you, this really is kind of a non-issue.
Mr. Strauss, your interpretation implies that the parents allegiances don't matter, and that is not an accurate position to base most of your discussion on. Furthermore, the parents do not have an equal role in determining whether their son or daughter is a natural born citizen.
At the time the constitution was written, women and slaves could not vote. To imply that the mother's citizenship status mattered equally to the father's citizenship status cannot be justified. Since the onus falls completely on the father's citizenship status, knowing where the father stands politically is a key component to this discussion and one that the founding fathers most likely were concerned with. Where a father stands politically does relate to a large extent, on where they live (Benedict Arnold not withstanding).
The father becoming a U.S. citizen and REMAINING a U.S. citizen in good standing is related to this issue and Barack Obama's father fails on this count, twice. The issue of WHEN someone's father becomes a U.S. citizen matters less as long as the father becomes a U.S. citizen and does not lose the citizenship status prior to their son or daughter's run for office.
Based on the Immigration act of 1952, It appears that Barack Obama's father may have broken morals clauses while living in the United States which would have rescinded his citizenship status. Also based on the Immigration act of 1952 Barack Obama senior most likely further rescinded his U.S. citizenship status when he became a Kenyan political figure later in life, and therefore rescinding Barack Obama's claim to being a natural born citizen.
At the end of the day, you can't be the son or daughter of a foreign political citizen and also expect to be president of the United States one day.
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