Is John McCain a "natural-born US citizen?" Snopes = "undetermined"

[LynnTheDem]

http://www.snopes.com/politics/mccain/citizen.asp

[fob]

1. Could this work to get "standing" to raise the claim?

From Snopes...

In the motion to dismiss the New Hampshire suit, Mr. McCain's lawyers said an individual citizen like the plaintiff, a Nashua man named Fred Hollander, lacks proof of direct injury and cannot sue.

Daniel P Tokaji, an election law expert at OSU, agreed. It is awfully unlikely that a federal court would say that an individual voter has standing," he said. "It is questionable that anyone would have standing to raise that claim."

end snip


If a voter donates to his campaign, then he would have "injury" if mccain is shown to be ineligible?

[crankychatter]

2. any child of active duty service personnel, born offshore deserves full citizenship NT

this is a total non-goer, right or wrong, legal or illegal

[SmokingJacket]

5. He's definitely a citizen, but a "natural-born" one?

Maybe not. Still, I don't think it matters one bit.

Except, of course, as a thing to toss back at Republicans who are trying to pretend that Obama's not a citizen...

[AzNick]

13. Again and again: "natural born citizenship" is not defined anywhere

Please, people, read the constitution.

It's not like you don't have access to it, obviously you have the Internet.

[SmokingJacket]

15. Please, I know. I've read the constitution.

It's a fuzzy area, and that's why nitpicking McCain's citizenship is much more valid than questioning Obama's.

Not that I am -- I don't give a shit.

[electron_blue]

17. Yes.

[Sweet Freedom]

3. Excerpt--

<snip>
As much we'd like to dismiss this one as just another frivolous election season rumor, it's impossible to make any definitive statement about Senator McCain's presidential eligibility because the issue is a matter of law rather than a matter of fact, and the law is ambiguous. There is no disputing that, under the U.S. statutes and laws applicable to the offspring of Americans living abroad and to the Canal Zone, John McCain is a citizen of the United States. However, the difference between "citizen" and "natural-born citizen" is an important one in this case, and some of the legal distinctions between the two are still murky. (The particular sticking points in Senator McCain's case are whether the Panama Canal Zone was covered by existing citizenship laws at the time of his birth, and whether someone who was born outside the U.S. and holds U.S. citizenship status by virtue of a law passed after his birth and applied retroactively qualifies as a natural-born citizen.)

The framers of the Constitution didn't elaborate on the term "natural born citizen," there has never been a court case defining exactly what a "natural-born citizen" is, and neither Congress nor the Supreme Court has definitively resolved the issue. It is therefore not completely inconceivable that someone could mount a legal challenge to Senator McCain's presidential eligibility, and that the issue would have to be decided in court...

If a consensus on the matter can be said to exist, it is that if John McCain is not a natural-born citizen under the law, it's only because of an exceptional and narrow gap in the law that was subsequently corrected and was never intended to exclude someone in his circumstances from natural-born citizenship status, so it would be unfair to declare him ineligible for the presidency on that basis...

<end>

[RollWithIt]

4. John McCain's father was a US Citizen.... therefor he is a "natural born" US Citizen....

All children of US citizens are US citizens. It's a stupid argument.

[Ilsa]

9. And his mother. Plus, I suspect they met the residency requirements.

[LynnTheDem]

10. That is incorrect.

There is a legal difference between "natural born citizen" and "citizen".

That's a fact of law.

[AzNick]

12. There is none. "Natural born citizenship" does not exist.

There is no legal definition of any such thing as "natural born" anything in any text of law in the US, starting with the Supreme Law of the Land (aka the US Constitution).

FYI, Romney was born in Mexico of American parents and was eligible to run.

He would have been barred from running at an earlier stage, had he been found ineligible.

[LynnTheDem]

16. That too is incorrect.

Have a nice day! :hi:

[teknomanzer]

21. Natural born citizen means...

citizen by birth. It does not necessarily matter where you were born. You can define it by what it is not. If you were born a citizen of another country and emigrated to the USA then you are not a natural born citizen. Schwarzenegger for example does not qualify to be president.

[AzNick]

11. Jus Sanguinis

People have to get a little bit educated and read the 14th amendment themselves.

McCain being born in the PCW, with both parents American (the law says only one American parent was needed), he was granted American citizenship by both Jus Soli and Jus Sanguinis.

Barack being born in Hawaii, of one American parent, and one foreign, makes him also an American by both rights.

Would he have been born out of the US, he would have been found American by birth by Jus Soli only.

Let the Freepers go through their 5 stages of grief. Right now same are in state of denial. Others are already depressed.

Acceptance is the last stage.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

19. Some types of U.S. citizenship are not protected by the 14th amendment

The 14th amendment covers only individuals born or naturalized in the United States. The Supreme Court case Rogers v. Bellei specifically determined that certain types of citizenship (born abroad of U.S. parents) are not protected by the U.S. Constitution or the 14th amendment. Miller v. Allbright also established the ability of Congress to put conditions on U.S. citizenship when an individual does not come under the specific language of the 14th Amendment (there are U.S. residency requirements for the U.S. parents for children born abroad). Statutory law enacted by the U.S. Congress (Immigration and Nationality Act section 301, also 8 United States Code Sec. 1401) has filled in the gap where the Constitution and 14th Amendment are silent. As for what is a "natural born" individual and whether those born abroad to U.S. parents come within the definition for purposes of the Presidency, I don't think there's been a specific determination made by the U.S. Supreme Court on the issue. As mentioned, those individuals born abroad do not come within the jurisdiction of the United States at birth and do not receive protection of the 14th Amendment.

Here is the specific language in the Supreme Court's Rogers v. Bellei decision, stating that persons born abroad to U.S. citizen parents are not covered by the 14th Amendment:

"...Of initial significance, because of its being the foundation stone of the Court's decisional structure in Afroyim, and, perhaps by a process of after-the-fact osmosis of the earlier Schneider as well, is the Fourteenth Amendment's opening sentence:

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."

The central fact in our weighing of the plaintiff's claim to continuing and therefore current United States citizenship is that he was born abroad. He was not born in the United States. He was not naturalized in the United States. And he has not been subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. All this being so, it seems indisputable that the first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment has no application to plaintiff Bellei. He simply is not a "Fourteenth Amendment first sentence" citizen. His posture contrasts with that of Mr. Afroyim, who was naturalized in the United States, and with that of Mrs. Schneider, whose citizenship was derivative by her presence here and by her mother's naturalization here. ..."

The Congress has used statutory law outside of the U.S. Constitution and the 14th amendment to define the types of citizenship acquired at birth under 8 USC 1401. Again, this is conditional citizenship, requiring such things as residence by one of the U.S. citizen parents before the child's birth as well as an oath of allegiance when the child born abroad reaches his majority (I had to take an oath before the INS when I turned 21, because I was born on a U.S. Air Force Base in Germany to a U.S. citizen father):

§ 1401. Nationals and citizens of United States at birth

The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth:
(a) a person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof;
(b) a person born in the United States to a member of an Indian, Eskimo, Aleutian, or other aboriginal tribe: Provided, That the granting of citizenship under this subsection shall not in any manner impair or otherwise affect the right of such person to tribal or other property;
(c) a person born outside of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents both of whom are citizens of the United States and one of whom has had a residence in the United States or one of its outlying possessions, prior to the birth of such person;
(d) a person born outside of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is a citizen of the United States who has been physically present in the United States or one of its outlying possessions for a continuous period of one year prior to the birth of such person, and the other of whom is a national, but not a citizen of the United States;
(e) a person born in an outlying possession of the United States of parents one of whom is a citizen of the United States who has been physically present in the United States or one of its outlying possessions for a continuous period of one year at any time prior to the birth of such person;
(f) a person of unknown parentage found in the United States while under the age of five years, until shown, prior to his attaining the age of twenty-one years, not to have been born in the United States;
(g) a person born outside the geographical limits of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is an alien, and the other a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, was physically present in the United States or its outlying possessions for a period or periods totaling not less than five years, at least two of which were after attaining the age of fourteen years: Provided, That any periods of honorable service in the Armed Forces of the United States, or periods of employment with the United States Government or with an international organization as that term is defined in section 288 of title 22 by such citizen parent, or any periods during which such citizen parent is physically present abroad as the dependent unmarried son or daughter and a member of the household of a person
(A) honorably serving with the Armed Forces of the United States, or
(B) employed by the United States Government or an international organization as defined in section 288 of title 22, may be included in order to satisfy the physical-presence requirement of this paragraph. This proviso shall be applicable to persons born on or after December 24, 1952, to the same extent as if it had become effective in its present form on that date; and
(h) a person born before noon (Eastern Standard Time) May 24, 1934, outside the limits and jurisdiction of the United States of an alien father and a mother who is a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, had resided in the United States.

[No Elephants]

14. You are not on the SCOTUS. There is a difference between a citizen and a "natural born citizen" or

the Founders would not have used the phrase "natural born" in the Constitution. Only the SCOTUS can say what that difference is, though; and they have not yet spoken on the issue.

[WeDidIt]

6. Though there is no legal precedent in such a case

it is inconceivable that John McCain would not be eligible to be president.

[JoePhilly]

7. When the right attacks Obama with that same arguement ... post this ... drives them crazy ...

October surprise!!!!

This story could break any day now.

It is rumored that McCain's mother, while pregnant, left the US base in Panama to go shopping.

She became tired and stopped in a cafe for lunch. Suddenly she went into labor. The cafe workers took her in the back and helped deliver little John MCain. They called him EL Guapo.

After the birth, McCain's mother was unable to travel. So one of the cafe workers let her (and John) stay in her tiny home overnight until she was ready to go back to the base.

The next day, the cafe workers took John and his mother back to the base.

The doctors at the base, unsure what to do, simply wrote the birth certificate as if John McCain had been born on the day they returned to the base.

Technically ... a story like this might mean that John McCain is not be an American citizen. He might actually be Panamanian.

Some argue that John McCain co-authored the Amnesty bill as a way to "give back" to those cafe workers who helped his mother.

McCain has not denied this story. Which make one wonder what he might be hiding.

[nc4bo]

8. I *know* this is all wrong for all the right reasons but I couldn't help but LMBO at the thought! nt

[JoePhilly]

18. I post it ... everytime they post their ridiculous lie ... drives them crazy

[dansolo]

20. I always thought that a "natural born citizen" was a person who was a citizen at birth

In my opinion, they both qualify--Obama because he was born in the US, and McCain because both his parents were citizens at the time of his birth even though he was born in Panama.