Posted on 02/16/2008 8:19:47 PM PST by Tai_Chung
There have been some posts on this topic already, but they are incomplete and the Mccain campaign, Wikipedia, and other sources have weaseled around it with a reference to a 1790 act of Congress defining foreign-born children of US citizens as natural-born, thus meeting to requirements to run for President.
I started digging into the Act of Congress that Mccain's campaign said got him around this (5th Congress, March 26th 1790), but found that this act was repealed by the same Congress, January 29th, 1795, RE-defining such children as just American citizens (not natural-born, as required for Pres. by the Constitution), and that this act was re-repealed April 14th, 1802 by the 6th Congress, keeping the same definition of foreign-born US citizens.
Unless someone can show me something I've missed (and I can find nothing anywhere referring to ANY other defense on this issue as of yet), Mccain is NOT a natural-born citizen of the United States and according to all applicable laws I've found, is NOT eligible to run for President. Links to these Acts of Congress:
I believe I may have misunderstood your post. I thought you were talking about U.S. installations in any part of the world.
Certainly, those military installations in the Canal Zone were on U.S. land with the exception of an airbase past Santa Clara. We no longer needed it after WWII. But then, “families” did not live there.
The problem seems to be headed for the Supreme Court should McNut become the Republican designee. In the past, those born outside the boundaries of the U.S. and ran for president never made it to the finals. Therefore, there has never been need of a Supreme Court ruling.
Sorry for any confusion on my part.
According to the site you linked to, new citizens must swear an oath to the exact part of the law I mentioned:>
Of particular relevance to the dual citizenship issue is that, as part of the oath, a new citizen must pledge "to renounce and abjure absolutely and entirely all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which the applicant was before a subject or citizen."
What good is an oath that can be broken without consequences? Our immigration policies have been rendered a quagmire, probably by design, and the more you learn about it, the more nauseated you become.
Is it your contention that McCain is not a natural born Panamanian? Try to have some respect for the Constitution.
This is not a discussion about “citizenship.” This is a discussion about if a foreign born (outside the boundaries of the United States of America as I am) can become U.S. president or not. This is why it has to go before the Supremes.
What is it that you do not understand about the basics of this simple discussion?
You didn’t read the whole thing through. You only read those parts you wanted to skew your point.
I thought I was helping you. But it didn’t turn out that way.
I won’t make that mistake again. Ever.
You are absolutely wrong. A naturalized citizen may not become President of the United States. Any person who is a citizen from birth is eligible. All children born to service members who are US citizens are citizens from birth no matter where they are born. These soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines agree to give up their lives in defense of the Constitution. To even suggest that their children have a lesser status than other citizens from birth counters everything that the Founding Fathers stood for. Anyone who would even propose a challenge to this should be tied to a post in the town center, covered in tar and lashed to within a inch of their lives.
And by the way, I am amazed the seconds it took you to read an extremely, very long article I sent you. You answered my post in ½ hour, which included the time you found it, read every word, digested it, and wrote your comments. You are an amazing brilliant person. (sarc)
I was born at 12 noon. Not at 12 midnight.
I addressed the distinct matter that you replied to and dealt with the materials you linked to that pertained to that distinct matter. Sorry if that hurt your feelings.
no, it’s my contention that you don’t know what you are talking about .. the US Code isn’t law, etc ... read up before you post, you’ll be better for it.
Pal anyone born of US parents anywhere is a citizen.
As defined by what?
Being a dual…I don’t give a dang about myself. I would never want to work for a bunch of crooks in Washington or elsewhere. Some on FR think if one is born in Mongolia, one is automatically a Chinese sympathizer. Total stupidity at its worse.
Total ignorance indeed.
And for you folks who say one can only have one allegiance to a country. You are correct. My allegiance is to the U.S. as the rest of us thousands of Canal Zonians (American citizens) in spite of the many times our very own country sold us down the river time and time again here in the Zone.
Are we good and angry? Yes we are. You have no idea. But we are still U.S. citizens
Title 8 has not been enacted into positive law.
If the source listed as the “Daily Paul” on the original post indicates that this less than meaningless sham of an objection is coming from the Ron Paul bunch, that’s disgraceful.
At the same time they repealed that "natural born" qualification for such children they pointed out that said children have the exact same citizen status as foreign born children of parents who later became naturalized citizens if those children are under the age of 21 at the time of the parents' naturalization. In other words, McCain was "parented in" to citizenship and the only right that he doesn't have that some other US citizens have is that he can't be President.
Let’s cut to the chase, shall we? The Constitution says, “No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President...” Where does the Constitution define ‘natural born’ as only those physically born in the United States to U.S. citizens?
When I looked at the source of this article, I had to conclude that it will come up many more times to come. *sigh*
The basis for that contention being that a law was enacted giving births on foreign soil the right to be American citizens. He is an American 'citizen by birth' by virtue of a law, thus technically he is a 'citizen by law'. Would the original specifications in the Constitution re presidential eligibility be met under those circumstances?
This scenario has never happened thus it has never been constitutionally tested.
It certainly is semantic hairsplitting.
What do you with some legal expertise think? Am I way off base or is there some possibility this could be attempted?
I never defined it as such. I would personally like it to be defined that way but I've seen nothing that disqualifies an anchor baby from having natural born status.
One can only deduce the definition of "natural born" by reduction. Since it was deliberately determined by Congress that John McCain's citizen status is not "natural born", we are only left with one remaining qualifier for the natural born status and that is: to be born in the United States.
I'll point out that the term wasn't totally explicable even back then. If its meaning was obvious, the 1st Congress wouldn't have felt the need to include the qualifying language. They later on deliberately repealed the extraconstitutional qualifiers.
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