Natural born citizen

[Wilma]

I am confused.  I thought I knew what a natural born citizen is, but I went looking anyway.  No wonder the Chief Justices don't want to touch it.

So, would some of you knowledgeable people define it for me.  I am not asking for anymore rhetoric as to why Obama is not a natural born citizen.  I want to know what the law says makes a citizen natural born.

[Varmit]

to my knowledge there has never been a legal definition.  To me it means that a person must be born of citizens of the U.S.

[Anmar]

I went through the california public school system, and they always told us that natural born citizen means that the president could only be someone who was actually born in the USA.  The definition has kinda of evolved along 2 different paths over the years as new situations came up.  You had people like Barry Goldwater who was born in arizona before it was a state, and going further back, Chester Arthur (the pres after Garfield) was born in Canada and his father wasn't an American Citizen.

There's kind of a catch 22 with the ongoing controversy regarding Obama's status that people aren't really facing.  Lets say for the sake of argument that Obama was born outside of the US to an American mother and a British Father (his father was Kenyan, but had british citizenship).  This sounds a lot like that Arthur guy right?  The argument that he isn't a natural born citizen comes from a court case in which the supreme court said "children born abroad of Americans are not citizens within the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment" (Rogers v. Bellei)  The basic idea is that when someone is born in another country, they instantly become a citizen of that country.  So for example if Obama was born in Kenya, he actually would have been a british subject.  Later when he came to the US, he would have had to have naturalization papers done.

The catch is, if you apply the same rules to McCain, he's not a natural born citizen either.  McCain was actually born in Panama while his Father was stationed there.  If you apply the same logic, McCain was a citizen of Panama per Panamanian law upon his birth.  It's the same concept of illigal immigrants coming across the mexican border to have their children.  You hear all the stories about the parents being deported for being illegal but the kids are citizens.  Anyways, when McCain's family returned to the states, he actually didnt even go through the naturalization process.  McCain wasn't made a citizen until much later when a law was passed to retroactively apply citizenship to all children of military families born abroad (8 U.S.C. § 1403)

Look, my point is, it's either neither or both.  You can't apply the law to one guy and then apply it differently to another.  Second, Even if you get Obama thrown out of office, we're all stuck with Joe Biden as president, and to be honest, i think thats kinda worse.

[W. Gray]

Thanks for that information.

I had not heard about Chester A. Arthur being born in Canada.

Officially, he was born in Fairfield, Vermont, which is about 15 miles from the Canadian border.

Apparently, his birthplace was an active issue in the presidential election campaign (similar to the charges against Obama) but the opponents could not prove anything (as in the case against Obama) and Chester did not produce anything to document his birth (similar to Obama).

The issue or definition of natural born citizen has never been addressed in the courts.

Arnold Schwarzenegger says he was naturally born and is a citizen of the United States.

[Varmit]

Arnold Schwarzenegger says he was naturally born and is a citizen of the United States.

is he talking about himself or obama?

[W. Gray]

himself

[Varmit]

I thought that was why he didn't run for president.  He said that because he was austrian born it would have been unconstitutional.  It is well documented fact that arnold is austrian.

[sixdogsmom]

It was a joke Billy---ssshhheeesh!

[kshillbillys]

I don't care where Arnold was born. Let's vote him in as President next time. He can't do any worse.

As for Joe Biden...he cracks me up. He is his own worst enemy and it really shows the brains of Obama to have him in there as VP.

[Varmit]

Hillbilly, usually I agree with you, but arnold, as president, nooooo waaaaaayy!!!  Now granted Comadant obama is bad, but King Flake of the Grainola state can't budget for a state, let alone 50 of 'em