Parentage only matters if you are born outside the United States. See the statute!!!!! It is right in there. McCain was born outside the United States. Read the damn statute.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/8/1401.html
TITLE 8 > CHAPTER 12 > SUBCHAPTER III > Part I > § 1401Prev | Next § 1401. Nationals and citizens of United States at birth
The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth:
(a) a person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof;
(b) a person born in the United States to a member of an Indian, Eskimo, Aleutian, or other aboriginal tribe: Provided, That the granting of citizenship under this subsection shall not in any manner impair or otherwise affect the right of such person to tribal or other property;
(c) a person born outside of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents both of whom are citizens of the United States and one of whom has had a residence in the United States or one of its outlying possessions, prior to the birth of such person;
(d) a person born outside of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is a citizen of the United States who has been physically present in the United States or one of its outlying possessions for a continuous period of one year prior to the birth of such person, and the other of whom is a national, but not a citizen of the United States;
(e) a person born in an outlying possession of the United States of parents one of whom is a citizen of the United States who has been physically present in the United States or one of its outlying possessions for a continuous period of one year at any time prior to the birth of such person;
(f) a person of unknown parentage found in the United States while under the age of five years, until shown, prior to his attaining the age of twenty-one years, not to have been born in the United States;
(g) a person born outside the geographical limits of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is an alien, and the other a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, was physically present in the United States or its outlying possessions for a period or periods totaling not less than five years, at least two of which were after attaining the age of fourteen years: Provided, That any periods of honorable service in the Armed Forces of the United States, or periods of employment with the United States Government or with an international organization as that term is defined in section 288 of title 22 by such citizen parent, or any periods during which such citizen parent is physically present abroad as the dependent unmarried son or daughter and a member of the household of a person
(A) honorably serving with the Armed Forces of the United States, or
(B) employed by the United States Government or an international organization as defined in section 288 of title 22, may be included in order to satisfy the physical-presence requirement of this paragraph. This proviso shall be applicable to persons born on or after December 24, 1952, to the same extent as if it had become effective in its present form on that date; and
(h) a person born before noon (Eastern Standard Time) May 24, 1934, outside the limits and jurisdiction of the United States of an alien father and a mother who is a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, had resided in the United States.
I’ve been looking for this statute for ages! Somebody posted it on another thread and I wasn’t able to find it again.
To me, if it says “The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth:...” it’s defining what qualifies as a natural born citizen. Unfortunately, it looks as if BO would qualify even if he were shown to have been born outside the US, simply because his mother was undeniably a citizen and had lived here two years after the age of 14. I think the law when he was born required 5 or possibly even 10 years, however, so he wouldn’t have been a natural born citizen under that definition (since she was only 17 or 18 when he was born). I wonder if the fact that he didn’t qualify at the time of his birth would have any effect on him now, after the law has changed?
It was because the 2nd congress recognized the error of doing so in the first naturalization act that they re-enacted the statute with the offending language removed.
Consider this - if you give me a list of numbers arranged in some pattern and ask me to "randomize" them, I'll return to you the same numbers in random order. If you present a foreign-born individual and provide a procedure to "naturalize" them, the result will be a natural citizen - with the same rights as any other natural citizen - which rights do not include the right to be Commander in Chief.
The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth:
(a) a person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof;
+++++++++++++++
Nationals, citizens VS. “Natural born citizen” as a requirement of being the POTUS and VPOTUS. SCOTUS case law is unsettled in this matter.
As an illustration, please think about this - is a child of two illegal aliens born in San Diego qualified (natural born or statutory citizenship granted?) to be the POTUS? What about one citizen and one foreign national - same question - natural born or statutory citizenship granted?
Is that person even “subject to the jurisdiction thereof”?
The whole point of the natural born citizen law was to prevent people with foreign loyalties (like people with dual citizenship and parents with split loyalties - like Obama) from becoming POTUS to the detriment of our great nation.
From Minor v. Happersett:
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=88&invol=162
“The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first. For the purposes of this case it is not necessary to solve these doubts. It is sufficient for everything we have now to consider that all children born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction are themselves citizens.”