Natural Born Citizens

February 13, 2016

Since Donald Trump is still pushing this line of attack, I think I'll weigh in with my two-cents.  For context, I dug into this issue pretty heavily during the '08 campaign.  I'm actually pretty frosted that it's come up again, after I tried and failed spectacularly at having a satisfactory engagement with anyone, from any side, on the merits for or against.  I was willing to be convinced, no matter what the consequence and effect on my personal desires.  So, in the absence of engagement in discussion when it mattered in '08, I've just had to figure it out for myself, and I'll state my findings, and position.  Also, to be fair to Donald Trump, he was virtually the only person in the public eye to not give up the "debate", until a copy of Obama's birth documents were posted (but he did not actually further the discussion of the salient points of the debate).

Here's a summary of the issue:  When the Constitution was written in 1787, a clause was added for the qualifications for holding the office of the President:  "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President;"  There is no iron-clad definition of Natural Born Citizen in the Constitution or supporting documents, or this would not be an issue.  So, everyone's been left to scour antiquity for original intent, precedent, etc. 

I thought I had encountered a clue as to the original intent of this clause when, in 2010, Kenya adopted a new constitution.  It went something like this:  Under the Kenyan Constitution, Barack Obama was considered to be a natural born citizen of Kenya, since his father was Kenyan.  That is, he would be entitled to citizenship in Kenya; Kenya would not have to *decide* to admit him as a citizen, and he could be claimed to be a dual citizen of the United States and Kenya.  It struck me that perhaps the concept of the clause was to prevent any possibility of foreign allegiance of the President, and any entanglements such Dual Citizenship might cause.  This would argue for the Natural Born clause to be applied as "born of citizens who themselves were not dual citizens (and maybe even could not claim natural citizenship from another country), in the United States".  This would prevent any possibility of either the candidate or the foreign country from making a claim of citizenship.

I've rejected this theory, because it relies completely on a third party's determination about claims of citizenship.  For example, Britain could decide to extend natural citizenship to all descendants of it's former colonies, or some other strange thing.  The only thing that makes sense is to rely on a criteria not controlled by another country.

This invalidates Trump's claim about birth place as the sole criteria.  As I discovered with Obama, another country could still claim citizenship for you, for the most basic reason that one of your parent's was from that country.  The only thing that matters is whether or not you can claim to have been born a citizen of the United States, regardless of any other claims.

To that end, it is nonsensical to say that being born abroad instead of at home to a legitimate citizen of the united states *does not confer natural citizenship*.  When we travel to a foreign country, not a single person would assume that having a child while in that country would deny that child the automatic and natural rights of a citizen of our own country.  That would be as if to say that we cease to exist as citizens of the United States once we cross the virtual boundary of the country.

My conclusion then is that anyone born to a U.S. Citizen is a U.S. Citizen by birth.  The location of birth may also invoke arbitrary claims by other parties, but they are immaterial to the fact that that child is a Natural Born Citizen.  Furthermore, since it is a natural right, it cannot be undone by paper work, or lack of paper work.  We don't assume our natural rights (life, liberty, etc.) are only in effect because of a document, they are in effect *by nature*.  If your paperwork is not *in order* then it's a problem for the Bureaucracy, not for the natural citizen to whom the Bureaucracy must answer.