Qualifications for President and the “Natural Born” Citizenship Eligibility Requirement
Citizenship at Birth: Case Law and Interpretations
The overwhelming evidence of historical intent, general understandings, and common law principles underlying American jurisprudence thus indicate that the most reasonable interpretation of “natural born” citizens would include those who are considered U.S. citizens “at birth” or “by birth,” either by the operation of the strict “common law” of jus soli derived from English common law (physically born in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction, without reference to parentage or lineage), or under existing federal statutory law incorporating long-standing concepts of jus sanguinis, the law of descent, including those born abroad of U.S. citizen-parents. This general historical understanding and interpretation is supported, as well, by specific federal case law in the United States, and in official legal opinions of U.S. officers.
Although the Supreme Court has not needed to rule specifically on the presidential eligibility clause, as discussed in more detail below, numerous federal cases, as well as state cases, for more than a century have used the term “natural born citizen” to describe a person born in this country and under its jurisdiction, even to parents who were aliens in the U.S.[1] Additionally, several Supreme Court cases, as well as numerous constitutional scholars, have used the term “native born” citizen to indicate all of those children physically born in the country (and subject to its jurisdiction), without reference to parentage or lineage, and employed such term in reference to those citizens eligible to be President under the “natural born” citizenship clause, as opposed to “naturalized” citizens, who are not.[2] In no currently controlling legal opinion in American jurisprudence has the citizenship or nationality of one’s parents or forebears been considered a determining factor in the eligibility of a native born U.S. citizen to be President, and no holding in any case in federal court has ever established a “two citizen-parent” requirement, or other requirement of lineage or bloodline, for a native born U.S. citizen to be eligible for the Presidency.
- ↑ Lynch v. Clarke, 3 N.Y. Leg. Obs. 236 (1 Sand. ch. 583) (1844); United States v. Rhodes, 27 Fed. Case 785 (No. 16151) (C.C. Ky. 1866); In re Look Tin Sing, 21 F. 905, 906 (Cal. Cir. 1884); Town of New Hartford v. Town of Canaan, 5 A. 360 (Conn. 1886); United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 662–63, 674–75 (1898); Kwok Jan Fat v. White, 253 U.S. 454, 457 (1920); Dos Reis ex rel. Camara, 68 F.Supp. 773, 774 (D.Mass. 1946); Yamauchi v. Rogers, 181 F. Supp. 934, 935–936 (D.D.C. 1960); Diaz-Salazar v. INS, 700 F.2d 1156, 1160 (7th Cir. 1982), cert. denied, 462 U.S. 1132 (1983); Mustata v. U.S. Department of Justice, 179 F.3d 1017, 1019 (6th Cir. 1999); Hollander v. McCain, 566 F.Supp.2d 63, 66 (D.N.H. 2008); Ankeny v. Governor of the State of Indiana, 916 NE2d 678, 688 (2009), pet. to transfer jur. den. (Ind. Supreme Court, April 5, 2010).
- ↑ Luria v. United States, 231 U.S. 9, 22 (1913); United States v. Schwimmer, 279 U.S. 644, 649 (1929); United States v. MacIntosh, 283 U.S. 605 (1931); Schneider v. Rusk, 377 U.S. 163, 165 (1963); Kent, Commentaries on American Law, at 273 (Vol. I, 2d ed. 1832); Story, A Familiar Exposition of the Constitution of the United States, §271, at 167 (Boston 1840); St. George Tucker, William Blackstone, Blackstone’s Commentaries: with notes and reference to the Constitution and laws, of the federal government of the United States and of the Commonwealth of Virginia, Vol. I, App. at 323 (Philadelphia 1803); Gordon, Mailman, & Yale-Loehr, Immigration Law and Procedure, Vol. 7, §§91.02[4][a] and §91.02[4][c] (rev. ed. 2010).
legal lexicon as defined as: “A citizen by birth, as distinguished from a citizen who has been naturalized.” Ballentine’s Law Dictionary, at 831 (“natural-born citizen”) (3rd ed. 1969), and as “A person born within the jurisdiction of a national government,” Black’s Law Dictionary, at 278 (“natural-born citizen”) (9th ed. 2009), as well as the common dictionary meanings of “natural-born,” as “having a specified status or character by birth” (note specific reference to presidential eligibility), Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, at p. 1507 (1976). It may also be noted that the English word “natural,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is rooted in the “Middle English (in the sense ‘having a certain status by birth’)….” Emphasis added.
