You say that if they have a claim to make him a soldier in their army... Do you mean under their law? Because their law can say anything they want it to say. Or do you mean our law? Because I doubt that there is any American law that says that Mexico can draft Romney, or anyone else for that matter. Or maybe you mean, what if Romney rec’d a draft notice from Mexico, and the Mexican government wants our government to extradite him so they could enforce it? Very likely, our government would not extradite him unless it first concluded that Romney was a Mexican citizen, so you find yourself in a circular pattern. He’s a citizen of Mexico if he can be extradited to Mexico, but he can’t be extradited to Mexico unless he’s a citizen of Mexico. You haven’t solved the problem.
As far back as history stretches, only two methods of claiming citizenship was accepted. That of Blood and that of Soil. You keep talking about "Mexican law" and I keep pointing out that these two criteria are recognized by OUR law. WE recognize that an appeal to these two criteria impart citizenship.
Yes, but no one is arguing that, and the point further confuses the matter because it deals only with the question of citizenship, and not whether he is “naturally born.” The problem is that you’ve got to separate the issues, “Is he a citizen?” “Is he natural born?”
If there is no claim of blood or soil by another nation, then YES, he is a "natural born citizen."
The original Constitution deferred to the States to define citizenship, and that was the law when they wrote “natural born citizen.”
This point is more important than you may realize. It demonstrates that States did not have to follow English Common law on this question, and could chose to define the criteria any way they wished. In fact, the state of New York did exactly this. Note they specifically prohibited the children of transient aliens.
A better rebuttal of the English Common law definition for citizenship I cannot conceive.
The 14th Amendment federalized it, but has a very obscure definition of who’s a citizen. You’ve got to be born in or naturalized and subject to the jurisdiction, which leaves a lot for Congress to determine. It certainly does not answer the question of what the Founders meant when they used the term “natural born citizen” 80 years earlier.
It depends on how much research you have done. All parties involved with the 14th amendment were well aware of the term "natural born citizen" because they used it in debate. The fact that they DID NOT USE IT in the 14th amendment tells you this was no accident. They did not intend that 14th amendment citizenship be seen as the equivalent of "natural born citizenship." This is reaffirmed by the Supreme Court in 1875 when they explicitly say that the 14th amendment citizenship is not the same thing as "natural born citizenship."
The definition of citizen has changed over the years. Therefore, whether you were a natural born citizen in 1792 may not be dispositive of whether you would be one today.
The requirements and privileges of naturalization,statutory, and derivative citizenship have changed over the years, but the definition of "natural born citizen" has never changed. It means the same thing today as it meant in 1787. Even if it had, the founders intended that the Constitution be interpreted in the light of the meaning of the words used during THEIR TIME.
Originally, the “natural born citizen” concept was seen as being determined entirely on where you were born.
No it was not. Indians were born in the same jurisdiction as Americans, and they were NOT Americans. It was an act of congress in 1924 (The Indian citizenship act) which allowed them to be American Citizens. (Note the 14th amendment didn't apply to Indians.) Also, Slaves were not citizens even though they were born here. While we are on the subject, there is also the case of James McClure, a man born in Virginia to an English Father, but not considered to be an American Citizen and arrested by the French during the run-up to the war of 1812.
But that was because in common parlance there was only one way to be BORN a citizen, and that was to be born in the US.
As I pointed out above, Slaves and Indians were two prime examples of why this theory is false, and the case of James McClure makes a third example.
Now we have laws that say you might be born a citizen even if you were born in Panama (ie. McCain), or anywhere really, assuming your parentage meets the citizenship test.
Since at least 1790, and if you read the debates on the Naturalization act of 1790 you will discover that the first congress regarded it as an oversight that the children of Americans born abroad were not already considered citizens.
I think that ultimately, the courts will say that the focus on where you were born is a matter of citizenship—not a matter of whether you were natural born.
You are conflating the term "citizen" with the term of art "natural born citizen." The two terms mean absolutely different things as PROVEN by the fact that article II uses BOTH terms. If they meant the same thing, article II would not have two different terms.
The issue of whether you are natural born they will hold depends on whether you were a citizen from birth.
No it will not. Aldo Mario Bellei was "BORN" a citizen of the United States, but he lost his citizenship because he failed to meet residency requirements. A "natural born citizen" cannot lose his citizenship for failure to meet residency requirements. He cannot lose it for any reason other than giving it up voluntarily or being convicted of treason.
Maybe if you renounce your citizenship after birth, that will prevent you from being a natural born citizen, but I doubt they are going to invent a new body of law that did not exist in 1792 (when the Constitution was written) to say who is and who’s not a citizen who could be “natural born.”
No they did not, but Obama Legitimacy supporters have been trying to create a new body of law ever since he came on the scene. They tend to keep arguing that "citizen" and "natural born citizen" mean the same thing, even though this is clearly false. They also try to confuse the question by asserting that the 14th amendment defined "natural born citizen" when in fact it only made "citizens" of former slaves.
Every piece of evidence which disproves their theory is ignored, and the same tired old arguments are reworded and trotted out once again. No, a "citizen" is general category, and a "natural born citizen" is a specific sub category.
A "natural born citizen" is a person who has no recognizable claim of allegiance to another nation. Period. End of Sentence. Full Stop.