It is incomprehensible to me why the framers would have inserted the language: “Natural born citizen” unless they intended it to mean born on the soil of the newly born nation.
Can anyone seriously contend they meant to include people born in the British Empire (Canada)—which was still our most dangerous enemy, in that brief lull between The War of Independence and the War of 1812 (when the Brits burned Washington) under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES?
Cruz’s argument now is so hypocritical as to be laughable. It speaks volumes about his character that he can forget all his alleged constitutional principles for the sake of personal ambition.
I don’t disagree, but I don’t think the Supreme Court will ever agree to even debate not to mention decide the issue. They will just keep tossing it back to lower courts who will decide in favor or any Citizen other who has an American born parent as did Obama and Cruz. I am not saying that is right, but pragmatism (Easy way out) tells me that is the way it will be if it is ever challenged again.
Remember, in those days, it would be a rare thing for someone to have their child in a different country. Traveling was hard, and expensive.
If you went back to England to have your child, it could well suggest you had close ties to that country.
You didn’t just run around the world vacationing. And you didn’t tend to get jobs in different countries as a matter of course either.
Nowadays, the ordinary citizen has a reasonable chance to spend time in many different countries. The world is now global.
But “Natural Born”, does not mean “location of birth”, it means the natural state of the newborn.
The fears of allegiance are mitigated if you have American parents, and are raised in America, regardless of what country you managed to get birthed in.
It is incomprehensible to me why the framers would specifically assign the making of all rules for Naturalization to Congress unless they wanted Congress to establish the rules for who does and does not need to be naturalized. In fact, that is exactly what the first Congress DID with the Naturalization act of 1790.