Why It Should Matter that
Kamala Harris Is Not
a Natural Born Citizen
American Thinker,
by
Mark A. Hewitt
Original Article
Posted By: Magnante,
8/20/2020 8:30:13 AM
If the media were to ask President Trump, "Are you a natural born citizen?," he would probably respond with, "My father, an American citizen, Fred Trump, was born in New York City, and my mother, Mary Anne, was born in Scotland and became a naturalized American citizen in March 1942.(snip) If you listened to the media, you would think there is no definition anywhere of "natural born citizen." The media assert that the clause "natural born citizen" isn't defined anywhere in the U.S. Constitution. But the media hide the fact that "natural born citizen" was specifically defined in the Naturalization Act of 1790.
Reply 1 - Posted by:
franq 8/20/2020 8:35:29 AM (No. 515386)
That war was lost long ago. Two terms of Hussein prove it.
28 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
snapper451 8/20/2020 8:37:09 AM (No. 515390)
Not an issue for the lawless Democrat party. Add to that the “victim”, “race”, and “woman” cards and she has the Royal flush.
23 people like this.
As the others have noted, that clause of the Constitution no longer holds any meaning.
To fully understand what I mean: A few days back I asked on Facebook where a governor got the authority to issue the edict he had issued. The overwhelming response I got was, "It doesn't matter. It is the right thing to do."
22 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
MMC 8/20/2020 9:15:59 AM (No. 515444)
It matters. Basic requirements-
Then age shouldn’t matter either.. AOC in the wings..
10 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
Twinkle93 8/20/2020 9:38:32 AM (No. 515481)
Has Kamala denouced her Jamaican citizenship?
13 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
bpl40 8/20/2020 9:42:21 AM (No. 515485)
At the time of promulgation there was no such thing as a green card holder - only citizen or non-citizen. A permanent resident however, has declared and sworn an intention to become a citizen and taken an oath of loyalty to the USA. The SCOTUS should intervene and declare that as sufficient for Article II. That lets Kamala of the hook but the Kenyan (in many ways actually) is still an outsider.
8 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
Judy W. 8/20/2020 9:46:30 AM (No. 515490)
If this is right, I and millions of my fellow Americans are not citizens. My grandparents arrived here during the high-immigration decades around 1900. Both of my grandmothers had babies the year after they arrived, too soon for them to have become citizens. Those babies were my parents. According to this article, my parents were not citizens. Therefore I am not a citizen. Never in their lives was my parents' citizenship questioned, even when my father was called before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee and lost his teaching job because he had been a member of the Communist Party and non-citizenship would have been a handy weapon for the government.
I wonder if there have been court decisions on the matter, or legislation. All the articles I've seen about natural born citizenship cite that clause in the Constitution, but it seems to me there are very few clauses that haven't been adjudicated at some point.
5 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
Judy W. 8/20/2020 9:49:13 AM (No. 515496)
I have to amend my comment because I made a mistake. It wasn't the Constitution that defined natural born citizen, it was a 1790 law. We have had plenty of legislation on citizenship since then, so why don't these authors review it?
5 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
LesUNo 8/20/2020 9:51:42 AM (No. 515499)
There is no disputing the fact that Kamala is an anchor ‘baby’ and should be disqualified. Does that make me a racist? Perhaps a sexist? Definitely a Constitutionalist.
14 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
lakerman1 8/20/2020 9:58:16 AM (No. 515507)
None of this argument can hold water.
chief Judas John Roberts, the three witches, and Blathering Breyer, won't touch this. They will do what they did with lawsuits challenging the eligibility of the Kenyan Klown.
They said Congress makes such a determination, and that no one else even has legal standing to file suit.
8 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
Mofongo 8/20/2020 11:26:50 AM (No. 515612)
I am confused. I thought birth on US soil unquestionably qualified one as a citizen. There’s really controversy about this?
2 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
EQKimball 8/20/2020 11:35:56 AM (No. 515624)
The act, including the language "children of citizens," is ambiguous. As #7 points out, tracing one's lineage is ridiculous in its practicality. It is extremely unlikely that any court would adopt a "fruit of the poisoned tree" argument about someone's grandparents to determine that the family line never acquired citizenship. The act is also not dispositive of whether "children of citizens," though plural, means that one must be able also to prove that their father was a citizen. For a variety of reasons, including rape, promiscuity, lack of information, likely millions of women over the past 230 years could have stated with certainty who fathered their child, or that they knew enough about the man with whom they conceived to state with certainty that he was a citizen at the time of conception. Again, no court would allow doubt to stand regarding the citizenship of a child born to a mother who was a citizen. Then there are the foundlings abandoned at the church door. Nothing is known about their parents. Are they to be denied a U.S. passport because they cannot prove the status of one or both parents?
Having publicly questioned Obama's citizenship only later to retract his doubt, the President should not wander into this debate again. I know Prof. John Eastman has suggested in Newsweek looking at the citizenship status of Harris' parents--mother from India, father from Jamaica. I have known and admired Prof. Eastman for more than 30 years. For reasons I have stated above, however, such an examination creates more confusion for millions of other people than it resolves regarding Harris. For that reason alone, the courts almost certainly would find in her favor, and our party again would appear racist for having gone there.
7 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
Illinois Mom 8/20/2020 12:40:44 PM (No. 515692)
I have my grandparents original naturalization document issued in 1919. My grandfather is actually the person named on the document with my grandmother, uncle, aunt, and my father who was 10 months old at the time, listed as "with me."
They were all declared U.S. citizens that day, and according to this document, they were all "British subjects" until then. (They were actually from Ireland and they hated the British subject thing.) My father knew this and told us many times that this is was the only thing that kept him from being elected President. (Haha)
4 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
Vesicant 8/20/2020 2:03:19 PM (No. 515776)
As much as I hate to say it, Hewitt is either misinformed or deliberately, um, let's say disingenuous. The 14th Amendment and United States v. Wong Kim Ark put this to bed. If this weren't true, there wouldn't be any such thing as anchor babies.
0 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
Sunhan65 8/20/2020 2:20:41 PM (No. 515788)
The goal of the men who wrote and adopted the US Constitution was clear: to prevent malign foreign influence in the fledgling American republic. The threat was real, and it came from loyalties to foreign powers. For example, the British were considered subjects of the crown no matter where they were born, and they were not consulted on their preferences in the matter. Renouncing that obligation was an act of revolutionary courage.
Circumstances of birth were not the issue, and #11 is entirely correct. None of the men who wrote and ratified the Constitution were natural born American citizens. Alexander Hamilton's parentage wasn't just ambiguous; it was positively scandalous, and he was born outside the continent altogether.
In order to become president, you need to have been an American citizen at the time of the Constitution's ratification, or you need to have been an American citizen at the moment of your birth. If you became an American citizen at any other time in any other way, you cannot become president.
#7/#8 is to be commended for her clarity on this point, and for providing an interesting illustration from her family history.
4 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
OhioNick 8/20/2020 3:42:28 PM (No. 515845)
#11
There is no birthright "anchor baby" citizenship mentioned anywhere in the U.S. Constitution. When President Eisenhower deported 1.5 million Mexicans in 1950s -- including those born here -- there were no court battles because the deportees were not citizens.
However, in 1982, one liberal Supreme Court Justice wrote in a footnote of an unrelated case, that the 14th Amendment actually meant the opposite of what the writers of the amendment intended, and the Justice created Anchor Baby citizenship out of thin air. Even if Anchor Babies like Kamala are citizens, first generation citizens (also known as Native Born) can't be president. Only second generation citizens (also known as Natural Born) can be president.
2 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
OhioNick 8/20/2020 3:45:21 PM (No. 515849)
#16
In the U.S. Constitution, the Founding Fathers exempted themselves -- as well as anyone who was alive at the time of the signing of the document -- from the Natural Born Citizen requirement.
2 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
Ladyhawke 8/20/2020 3:58:35 PM (No. 515857)
Clearly, and once again, many of the posters to this thread miss the argument. It is NOT and never has been about whether anyone is simply a citizen. It is whether someone is a Natural Born Citizen, a constitutional requirement only to be POTUS. As members of Congress only need to be simple citizens, clearly the founders meant a higher level of citizenship for the POTUS.
You can become a citizen many ways, but if you have to get it by statute or SCOTUS ruling, you will never be a Natural Born Citizen.
6 people like this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
DVC 8/20/2020 4:13:51 PM (No. 515866)
She shouldn't be permitted to run. NOT Constitutionally able to fulfill the office requirements.
4 people like this.
Reply 20 - Posted by:
NYbob 8/20/2020 7:35:52 PM (No. 516008)
Like SO many blatantly illegal things the rats do, it doesn't matter if the corrupt, blackmailed, cowardly opposition within the rat party, the uniparty parasites or the weak kneed Republicans are too afraid to pursue the issue. She simply ISN'T eligible. It is very clear. If Trump tried this and he was as disqualified as she is, he would not have made it to the first debate and there is no way he would be President.
The rats amp up any law that helps them and confuses or ignores any law that hurts them. All of it aided by a media which buries what it can and attacks what refuses to go away. Some posters need to take 5 minutes and learn the difference between Native born- anchor babies and Natural Born- Born here and Both parents US CITIZENS. Not foreign students on a visa. I know it is hard for the current culture of me, me, me to understand that some standards are higher, like running for President, but it is there in black and white as a requirement. An impossible requirement for the filthy, corrupt, rat party. Far too hard for the scum to find anyone that meets two simple requirements to run the country. Do we deserve to exist as the United States of America, if we aren't going to have grit to enforce this simple, common sense, long standing law, and to prevent the obvious, theft of the office using fake mail in votes?
5 people like this.
Reply 21 - Posted by:
dragon 8/20/2020 10:37:10 PM (No. 516100)
It is incredible the number of people who do not know the difference between American citizen and natural born citizen. A child is considered an American citizen when they are born to one (or more) U.S. citizens, irrespective of where the child's birth takes place. A person born to foreign parents can become an American citizen through the naturalization process, like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Henry Kissinger. The left considers Anchor babies, children born to illegal aliens in America, are citizens. Natural born citizen, a child born of American citizens, is a special requirement to be president. The term is only used in Article II of the US Constitution to define the eligibility requirements for President and vice president.
3 people like this.
Reply 22 - Posted by:
DVC 8/21/2020 12:48:52 AM (No. 516160)
#11/ The Constitution does not say "must be a citizen" it says "must be a natural born citizen", (my italics).
The definition of natural born citizen is in the Citizenship Act of 1795, and it means born from TWO American citizen parents. Camel-face had ONE American citizen parent at the time of birth. The other became a citizen later.....which doesn't count.
Yes, Camel-face is a CITIZEN, but NOT a 'natural born citizen'. They are not the same thing, no matter how many times the Fake News folks say that they are.
1 person likes this.
Aside from that, did her mother make them Canadian citizens when they moved there ?
0 people like this.
Reply 24 - Posted by:
Sunhan65 8/21/2020 6:26:24 AM (No. 516232)
Yes, #18. I said that in the first sentence, 3rd paragraph of my post. And the timing was "adoption," not signed.
0 people like this.
Reply 25 - Posted by:
Sunhan65 8/21/2020 7:10:02 AM (No. 516269)
#23, I respectfully offer a sincere hypothetical question based on a real fact: I am one year older in China. China considers babies one year old on the day they were born. If Congress passed a law in 1795 defining age in the U.S. the same way China does, would a person born in 1986 be eligible to become president?
The U.S. Constitution uses language that was clear to those who wrote and ratified it. You had to have "attained to the Age of thirty five Years." Not "became designated 35 years old by a later act of Congress." So my answer would be no. Likewise, if Congress passed a law stating that everyone physically residing in the United States today was to henceforth be considered a natural-born citizen, would they be eligible to become president? Again, no.
My silly examples are in service of a larger point: Congress doesn't decide who gets to be president. The Constitution already did that. People disagree about what the words natural born citizen mean. I understand that disagreement because I've been on both sides. For years I believed that you had to be born inside the United States to be president. But, of course, the Constitution is clear that you need only have been a resident for 14 years.
They didn't care where you were born or who you were born to. They wanted to ensure you didn't have some unresolved loyalty or, worse, actual fealty to a foreign ruler. So they required that you be either an American citizen the time of constitutional ratification or at the moment of your birth. They used the words "natural born," meaning "citizen at birth" to distinguish from naturalized, meaning "became a citizen through a process if renunciation and naturalization."
0 people like this.
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