{"id":3595,"date":"2016-01-13T17:14:55","date_gmt":"2016-01-13T23:14:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=3595"},"modified":"2016-01-15T07:33:00","modified_gmt":"2016-01-15T13:33:00","slug":"a-few-words-on-natural-born-citizens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2016\/01\/a-few-words-on-natural-born-citizens.html","title":{"rendered":"A few words on Natural Born Citizens"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I\u2019m not a Cruz supporter, but this discussion is getting a bit out of hand.<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s start with this:<\/p>\n

The entire conversation around the question of who is, or isn\u2019t, a \u201cnatural born citizen\u201d\u00a0takes it for granted that \u201cnatural born\u201d means \u201cborn on American soil\u201d \u2014 and only by extension and to the extent defined by law \u201cborn of American parents elsewhere,\u201d because the latter case is otherwise \u201cunnatural.\u201d<\/p>\n

But isn\u2019t it the case that the default way of acquiring citizenship throughout history has been based on the citizenship of one\u2019s parent(s)? \u00a0And that birthright citizenship as practiced in the United States is by the exception, not the rule?<\/p>\n

It seems obvious to me that when the founders said the president must be a \u201cnatural born citizen\u201d they meant this in distinction to a \u201cnaturalized citizen\u201d \u2014 hence, anyone who was a citizen upon birth, not needing to go through a special naturalization process, is a \u201cnatural born citizen.\u201d \u00a0And the \u201cbirther\u201d argument against Obama was not simply that he was born outside the United States, but that\u00a0the laws at the time required for automatic citizenship at birth either two American citizen parents, or, if only one, then a minimum length of residence in the United States, which requirement his mother didn\u2019t meet because of her young age.<\/p>\n

But now this is coming up again with respect to Ted Cruz, with a pair of opinion pieces in the Washington Post (as I use up my allotment of WaPo articles pretty quickly this month).<\/p>\n

The first, \u201cYes, Ted Cruz is a \u2018natural born citizen\u2019<\/a>\u201c, by Johnathan H. Adler, appeared on January 7th as a part of the\u00a0Volokh Conspiracy blog hosted there. \u00a0He states simply,<\/p>\n

Under U.S. law, the fact that Cruz was born to a U.S. citizen mother makes him a citizen from birth. In other words, he is a \u201cnatural born citizen\u201d (as opposed to a naturalized citizen) and is constitutionally eligible.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

and he sites a further expert source who says<\/p>\n

All the sources routinely used to interpret the Constitution confirm that the phrase \u201cnatural born Citizen\u201d has a specific meaning: namely, someone who was a U.S. citizen at birth with no need to go through a naturalization proceeding at some later time. And Congress has made equally clear from the time of the framing of the Constitution to the current day that, subject to certain residency requirements on the parents, someone born to a U.S. citizen parent generally becomes a U.S. citizen without regard to whether the birth takes place in Canada, the Canal Zone, or the continental United States.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The second of these, \u201cTed Cruz is not eligible to be president<\/a>,\u201d by\u00a0Mary Brigid McManamon, claims just the opposite. \u00a0She cites various bits of common law, the particulars of which I\u2019m not equipped to judge, except that her arguments seem to be a stretch, and they\u2019ve been refuted elsewhere, so I\u2019m not going to do so here.<\/p>\n

But I will point to one bit of nonsense at the top of her article:<\/p>\n

Cruz is, of course, a U.S. citizen. As he was born in Canada, he is not natural-born. His mother, however, is an American, and Congress has provided by statute for the naturalization of children born abroad to citizens. Because of the senator\u2019s parentage, he did not have to follow the lengthy naturalization process that aliens without American parents must undergo. Instead, Cruz was naturalized at birth.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No, no, and no.<\/p>\n

Naturalization is a process \u2014 it requires some sort of action on the part of or on behalf of an individual. \u00a0When my son was born, sure, we had to apply for a Consular Record of Birth. \u00a0But that did not \u201cmake him a citizen\u201d \u2014 all it did was provide documentation of the fact that he was already a citizen.<\/p>\n

There was nothing \u201cunnatural\u201d about his citizenship, no way in which Congress, as an exception to a general rule, had to enable at-birth citizenship for those born outside the country. \u00a0Instead, doesn\u2019t it make more sense to consider\u00a0the laws defining the circumstances in which children are or aren\u2019t automatic citizens, as a means of limiting what would otherwise be the general rule of automatic citizenship, to prevent citizenship from being passed down for generations?<\/p>\n

In fact, given that birthright citizenship had to be defined by the 14th amendment, it seems to me far more likely to think of citizenship inherited from one\u2019s parents as \u201cnatural\u201d and citizenship by location of birth as the unnatural category.<\/p>\n

And, looked at in this manner, it simply makes no sense at all to even entertain the idea that Cruz is not a \u201cnatural born citizen.\u201d<\/p>\n

To close, an anecdote:<\/p>\n

As longtime readers will know, when my boys were preschoolers, we spent two years in Germany, officially as \u201cexpats\u201d even though we lived an hour\u2019s drive from my husband\u2019s hometown. \u00a0Up to this point, the boys simply had U.S. passports, and, while we made sure to get my long-term residency\/work permit in order, we didn\u2019t do anything with the boys.<\/p>\n

Now, in Germany, when one moves into a new town, it\u2019s not enough to get the utilities changed over and maybe register a forwarding address with your old post office. It\u2019s also required that one register at city hall, providing the names of all the household residents, as well as various other details, among them citizenship. \u00a0So, shortly after move-in, my husband went in to do so, filling out: \u00a0Dad: \u00a0German; Mom: \u00a0American; Kid 1: American; Kid 2; \u00a0American. \u00a0(We had only the two kids at the time.)<\/p>\n

And the clerk, examining the paper and clarifying the situation \u2014 that Dad was a German citizen \u2014 simply X\u2019d out the \u201cAmerican\u201d for the kids and wrote in \u201cGerman.\u201d \u00a0No questioning of \u201cdid you fill out X paperwork?\u201d \u2014 it was, and is, simply a given that the fact of his German citizenship, not the submission of any form, makes our kids German citizens. \u00a0And this transmission of citizenship from parent to child is, I would say, more\u00a0natural, more of a true \u201cbirthright\u201d citizenship<\/strong> then our 14th Amendment situation conferring citizenship due to the fact of being born on American soil.<\/p>\n

UPDATE: \u00a0Here\u2019s a very detailed post on the matter from Legal Insurrection<\/a>. \u00a0To be honest, I\u2019ve only skimmed, so I\u2019m adding this link both for readers and for my own ability to come back to this later.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m not a Cruz supporter, but this discussion is getting a bit out of hand. So let\u2019s start with this: The entire conversation around the question of who is, or isn\u2019t, a \u201cnatural born citizen\u201d\u00a0takes it for granted that \u201cnatural born\u201d means \u201cborn on American soil\u201d \u2014 and only by extension and to the extent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[253,254],"class_list":["post-3595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-cruz","tag-natural-born-citizen"],"yoast_head":"\nA few words on Natural Born Citizens<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I'm not a Cruz supporter, but this discussion is getting a bit out of hand. 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