Anyone can run.
But as I said, when you’re adopted, you get a new birth certificate. This seems kind of capricious since in all other respects the adopted child is equal to the birth child. In theory, anyway.
There is a distinction in political geography between a territory being “part of” a country and “belonging to” a country. For example, the Falkland Islands are in no sense part of the United Kingdom, whereas Guadeloupe is legally part of France. This distinction is marked in the case of United States territories by the terms “incorporated” and “unincorporated”. Applying this terminology, Puerto Rico is not part of the United States, while the Alaska territory and Arizona territory were.
But a new birth certificate doesn’t change the facts of your birth, any more than a new death certificate could change the reality of your death. What adoption does is to create, for a wide range of purposes, a legal fiction that you are the child of A and B, when in fact the objective, factual, biological, genetic reality is that you are the child of X and Y. And while adoption, as a statutorily-created mechanism, can alter the operation or effect of other statutes, I think it’s open to question whether it can alter the operation or effect of the Constitution, at any rate where that intention is not explicitly or implicitly expressed in the Constitution itself. The words “natural born” must mean something, and the general view is that they mean a citizenship derived from/dependent on the circumstances of your birth. If you want to change that, it may require a constitutional amendment.
I’m a natural born citizen of the USA, have lived in the USA for more than 5 years, married to a non-citizen, with a child born in a foreign country.
I think that the criteria given for “natural born citizen” on that third-party website are incorrect. It is not an official government website, and does not link directly to any official documentation: I think that the information it provides is either (1) out of date, or (2) simplified.
In all respects going forward, yes. But I’m not so sure that it changes events that happened in the past - and the child wasn’t born a citizen.
Think about inheritance, for example. Let’s just say that I adopt a child who was orphaned- maybe my cousin and his wife die in a car accident. They had one child, and their wills left everything to her, so she inherits everything. If I adopt her after she has already inherited the assets, I don’t think they are taken from her and given to whoever would have inherited if she had never been born. And I’m pretty sure that if my mother leaves $10K to each of her grandchildren, the child I adopted two years after the estate was settled doesn’t have a claim.
This issue is that “natural born citizen” has never actually been defined. I don’t believe there is any real question that those who acquire citizenship as a result of being born in the US qualify as natural born citizens. There seems to be a consensus among legal experts that anyone who is a citizen at birth and does not require naturalization is a natural born citizen - but since it only matters in the context of running for president, the question has never been answered definitively. And it may never be , until “a citizen from birth” who was not born on US soil wins a presidential election.
Why do you think this?
But all of that is getting afield of the OP’s question. Everyone agrees that someone born in the US is a natural-born citizen, and Puerto Ricans are born in the US.
Not actually. People pointed it out, but AFAIK, no one seriously argued it disqualified him.
There is nothing on my birth certificate that indicates it’s a legal fiction. And it DID change the facts of my birth, as stated on the certificate itself.
Let’s say your mother leaves $10K to each of her grandchildren, and two years after the estate was settled you have another one by the normal means. That child wouldn’t have a claim either.
So?
How did it do that?
I don’t think there’s any real debate about whether they’re natural born citizens, but someone born in Puerto Rico is actually born outside the US. That’s why there has to be a separate law stating that anyone born in Puerto Rico is a US citizen. In the case of Puerto Rico (and most territories), the law happens to be identical in substance to the 14th Amendment, so nobody really notices the difference, but unincorporated territories do not necessarily have the same rules as the US. (For example, someone born in American Samoa is not necessarily a citizen. Most of the local population are merely “nationals” rather than citizens.)
It says I was born to A&B, when in fact I was born to X&Y.
What I’m getting at here is that the birth certificate of an adopted child is going to say it was born to the adoptive parents–as mine does. If the parents are American citizens, then the child is, too. Whatever country they’re born in. Therefore, the adoptive parents being American citizens, so is the adopted child.
Yes, yes, absolutely; the adopted child of US citizens is a US citizen. No question.
The fact, as you rightly point out, is that the child was born to X and Y, even though the birth cert says otherwise. But the child is a US citizen by virtue of their adoption by A & B, who are US citizens, not by virtue of the facts of circumstances of birth. Hence, the child is not a “natural-born” citizen, because the citizenship is in no way connected with the facts or circumstances of their birth; it is a consequence of their adoption.
That’s a fairly recent change, though. If they were born before 1983, they didn’t acquire US citizenship automatically (the law changed in 2001 and applied to adopted children under the age of 18). Naturalization was a separate process, and many parents failed to complete it for their children: