I wouldn’t say it was exactly leased. The treaty gave the US the right to act “as if” it were sovereign in the Canal Zone, but as you say still remained part of Panama.
As has been said, simply being born in the Canal Zone did not confer citizenship. McCain’s status depends on the citizenship of his parents, not his place of birth.
Interestingly, McCain qualifies as a native-born Panamanian citizen, and would be eligible to run for President of Panama in next year’s elections just in case he loses this one.
This applies to children born today (and it applied when my children were born, in 1994 and 2000). However, the rules were different in 1961, with a longer residency requirement if only one parent was a U.S. citizen.
The rules for babies born in Hawaii, of course, were exactly the same as they are today.
As of 1941 the relevant statutes explicitly make birth in Puerto Rico territory confer US citizenship-by-birthplace (“jus solis”). In 1917 what was applied was a sort of a citizenship-by-decree for everyone who was already around and did not opt-out, which in turn was understood to pass on to descendants.
However, as the various quoted statutes and regs suggest, part of the problem is that the legislators and regulators(and the drafters of the XIV Amendment), when establishing nationality rules, insist on using the terms “by birth” or “at birth”, or “born in” – and not the phrase “*natural *born” from Art.II, Secc. 1 of the Constitution (which many people tend to confuse with “native” born, just to add to the mess).
Okay, sorry, Naval Station Rota, in Spain, is indisputably Spanish soil with a U.S. military presence on it. Presumably this is relevant to the discussion of the birthplaces of the two major aspirants for the Presidency in some way that someone will explain.
Without looking it up, I misconstrued JRDelirious’s reference to it as meaning John McCain’s birthplace, which on due Googlification I find to be named Coco Solo Naval Hospital, a fact I had forgotten.
What do you mean? There is no “can of worms” at all associated with Obama’s citizenship. There might be one with McCain’s if anyone chose to pursue it, but nobody is.
Right, the “can of worms” is about picking on the meaning of “natural born citizen” when the actual laws do not explicitly define the phrase. This WOULD be hypothetically relevant to Sen. Obama were it not that he was born to an undisputably American mother in a state of the USA, and to Sen. McCain were it not that laws and precedents in effect at the time of his birth covered it.
As to the wack theory referenced by the OP, demanding an “original, long-form” record of birth as “better” proof than the certificate that’s an official document issued by the State for everybody is just one more instance of lunacy afoot. If the dagblasted document were to be produced in evidence, the persons making the claim would then likely protest that the flag at the press conference had a gold fringe on it, or something like that (for all we know Hawaii has DESTROYED the originals of the on-the-spot record of birth and it’s all now microfiche or digitized pdf’s, and boy wouldn’t they go to town on THAT…)
This discussion brings up a question I have. Who would be the deciding authority of whether or not a particular person meets the constitutional qualifications of being president? The closest thing I can see in the constitution is the 20th admendment which states Congress shall provide if neither the president-elect and vice president-elect are qualified but have they done so? Does Congress not count the elector college votes? Does the Supreme Court get involved?
As a WAG, I’d say it’d never get that far. If there was a serious claim that a particular candidate wasn’t a proper citizen, his/her opponent would sue to get them removed from the ballot in the various states. Thus I’d guess it’d ultimately fall to the courts to make the final decision, up to and including the Supreme Court.
