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Q & A
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The (GA) - Sunday, March 10, 2002
Author: COLIN BESSONETTE; Staff
Q: As a follow-up to the George Romney question in Q&A the other day, how was he able to run for president of the United States, since he was born in Mexico and wasn’t a natural- born citizen?
— David Herndon, Atlanta
A: Romney , the first Republican to announce he was running for the 1968 presidential nomination, was, as you say, born in Chihuahua, Mexico . But his parents were Americans.
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 . . .”
Constitutional scholars have often debated whether a child born abroad of American parents qualifies. The consensus is that “natural- born “ does not mean “native- born .”
But that scenario has never occurred, and so the issue has never been tested. If Romney had been elected, somebody probably would have taken the issue to court.
As the earlier Q&A item reported, Romney dropped out of the race. His support had waned dramatically after he said on TV he had been “brainwashed” by U.S. military and government officials into supporting U.S. involvement in Vietnam.
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PRESIDENT ROMNEY - A STALWART, GAVE LIFETIME OF SERVICE TO CHURCH
Deseret News, The (Salt Lake City, UT) - Saturday, May 28, 1988
Once an impoverished refugee from Mexico who eventually served as a General Authority for 47 years, President Marion G. Romney made major contributions to the Church throughout his life.
He was known for his powerful testimony, for his knowledge of the scriptures and for his ability to get things done, said associates. He served in the First Presidency for 12 years as a counselor to two Church presidents.
President Romney was born in Mexico , a son of George S. and Artemesia Redd Romney . In 1912, George Romney sent his family to the United States when their hometown of Colonia Juarez was threatened by rebels during the Mexican Revolution. Young Marion, 15, was placed in charge of the move, and the family traveled by wagon to El Paso, Texas. His father later rejoined them, and they eventually settled in Rexburg, Idaho.. He learned the carpentry trade from his father and excelled in sports.
After graduating from Ricks Normal College in 1920, he was called to serve a mission to Australia. He returned to marry Ida Jensen, with her “golden hair and smiling face.” They were parents of four children, two of whom died in infancy.
During the formative years of the Church’s welfare program in the mid-1930s, he was a young bishop of the 33rd Ward in Salt Lake City. In 1935, he listened to President Heber J. Grant encourage bishops to follow welfare principles. He was a member and later chairman of the bishops regional council, one of the early forerunners of the welfare plan.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pratt%E2%80%93Romney_family
Pratt–Romney family
(family tree)
Miles Park Romney , Mitt’s great-grandfather, was born there in 1843, but the Romneys and other Mormons fled Nauvoo the next year after Smith was killed by a raging mob. They followed Brigham Young across the Great Plains and crossed the Rockies to help settle the Salt Lake Valley, then part of Mexico .
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But Mexico was where Miles Park Romney found the freedom he was looking for. He and a small group of settlers sent by Brigham Young bought a dusty plot along the Piedras Verdes River in 1885 with the consent of Mexico ‘s then-dictator, Gen. Porfirio Diaz.
Miles Park Romney and his family, including Mitt’s grandfather Gaskell, lived out of wagon boxes and helped chisel irrigation canals along the sides of the valley to plant apple orchards, which soon become the most productive in Chihuahua.
By the time Mitt Romney ‘s father, George, was born in 1907, northern Mexico was headed for chaos and violent calamity.
With the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution in 1910, the Mormons of northern Mexico were forced to flee, as they had done in previous generations. The Romneys boarded a train for El Paso two years later, and Colonia Juárez and the other settlements were sacked by bandits. Only about a third of the Anglos would return to their homes in Mexico .
Mitt’s grandfather Gaskell was not among them.
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His son George Romney , Mitt’s father, would grow up poor in the United States, taunted as “Mexican!” by other kids at school. But he went on to be a legendary auto executive, two-term Michigan governor (Willard Mitt Romney was born in Detroit in 1947), and one-time presidential candidate, losing the 1968 Republican nomination to Richard M. Nixon.
At the time, George Romney ‘s eligibility for president was more of an issue than his Mormonism, news archives show. But the potential legal dispute over his Mexican birth was superseded by Nixon’s primary victories, and Romney dropped his campaign before the matter could be settled.
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When did George Romney become a US citizen and when was Mitt born?