Quote:
Originally Posted by razark
(Post 1652680)
So if one is born abroad, one must only have one US citizen parent, but if one is born in the US, both parents must be citizens?
Huh?
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The Constitution requires that a candidate for President of the United States be a "natural-born citizen". According to the US Department of State Foreign Affairs Manual: "the fact that someone is a natural born citizen (citizen at birth) pursuant to a statute does not necessarily imply that he or she is such a citizen for Constitutional purposes."[29]
The majority opinion by Justice Horace Gray in United States v. Wong Kim Ark observed that:
The constitution nowhere defines the meaning of these words ["citizen" and "natural born citizen"], either by way of inclusion or of exclusion, except in so far as this is done by the affirmative declaration that 'all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.'[4]
The original United States Naturalization Law of March 26, 1790 (1 Stat. 103) provided the first rules to be followed by the United States in the granting of national citizenship. This law limited naturalization to immigrants who were "free white persons" of "good moral character". It thus left out indentured servants, slaves, free blacks, and later Asians. While women were included in the act, the right of citizenship did "not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States...." Citizenship was inherited exclusively through the father. This was the only statute that ever purported to grant the status of natural born citizen.
John Bingham stated in the House of Representatives in 1862:
Who are natural-born citizens but those born in the Republic? […] [P]ersons born within the Republic, of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty, are natural born citizens. Gentleman can find no exception to this statement touching natural-born citizens except what is said in the Constitution relating to Indians.[13]
notice the plural statement 'parents' ?
He reiterated his statement in 1866:
Every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen.[14]
This is the question the courts haven't answered. They've refused to hear the case 8 times so far. But as to SS post- I still havent seen the revelance of the rules regarding children born
abroad to this discussion. please explain.