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To: Mr Rogers
It's crackpot nonsense. They can't even arrive at a single legal theory among themselves. Is it two citizen parents, do both of those have to be only ever U.S. citizens, can the parents be naturalized, does location matter, etc., etc.

Once I discovered the first congress and president Washington added kids born abroad to U.S. citizen parents to be "Natural Born Citizens" themselves, the Vittal-focused argument was senseless.

Congress could clearly define what NBC was and Vittal conflates "native" and "natural born" anyway which only strengthens the view that NBC means someone not naturalized or never a citizen and that birth-right citizenship, a.k.a natural born citizenship, is whatever Congress says it is whether it's a version of Jus Soli, Jus Sanguinis or both.

29 posted on 02/29/2012 9:23:18 AM PST by newzjunkey (Santorum: 18-point loss, voted for Sotomayor, proposed $550M on top of $900M Amtrak budget...)
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To: newzjunkey

Spelling flub: Vittal = Vattel


30 posted on 02/29/2012 9:25:47 AM PST by newzjunkey (Santorum: 18-point loss, voted for Sotomayor, proposed $550M on top of $900M Amtrak budget...)
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To: newzjunkey
Congress could clearly define what NBC was and Vittal conflates "native" and "natural born" anyway which only strengthens the view that NBC means someone not naturalized or never a citizen and that birth-right citizenship, a.k.a natural born citizenship, is whatever Congress says it is whether it's a version of Jus Soli, Jus Sanguinis or both.

You haven't gotten in deep enough to have a clear understanding of the issue. Perhaps this will help.

Chief Justice Waite of the Supreme Court in the case of Minor v Happersett.

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.

This decision was AFTER the 14th amendment by the way, so take that into account as well.

The notion that Congress could define what "natural born" means is wrong. If Congress could define such a thing, the Continental Congress could have defined themselves as "natural born citizens" of the United States, instead of writing a grandfather clause. ("...or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution...")

By the principles of natural law as described by Grotius, Puffendorf, Locke, and Vattel, (quoted extensively in the debates on the Constitution and in the Ratification Debates) one was either "natural born" or one was not. It was an inherent characteristic, such as Hair color, and therefore not subject to being "decreed" by a legislative body. Congress only had power of Naturalization, which means to make "like natural." It is akin to adoption.

An Adopted child may have the same rights as a natural born child, but they are NOT the same.

54 posted on 02/29/2012 12:50:02 PM PST by DiogenesLamp (Partus Sequitur Patrem)
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