# Setting the record straight on Americans born overseas and the presidency? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 14, 2013, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177 "2013-08-14T01:46:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177/61 "2013-08-15T16:50:27Z")
There is an argument to be made that “natural born citizen” refers to someone who is born into the citizenship not requiring any law to establish his citizenship - that is, someone born in the US to two US citizens. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177/62 "2013-08-15T16:56:44Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > There is an argument to be made that “natural born citizen” refers to someone who is born into the citizenship not requiring any law to establish his citizenship - that is, someone born in the US to two US citizens. Cool—that would make me, American-born son of one American, ineligible! ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177/63 "2013-08-15T16:59:41Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > Cool—that would make me, American-born son of one American, ineligible! Are you upset about that? Ruined your plans? ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177/64 "2013-08-15T17:01:09Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > There is an argument to be made that “natural born citizen” refers to someone who is born into the citizenship not requiring any law to establish his citizenship - that is, someone born in the US to two US citizens. I’m not sure how that “doesn’t require a law”. Whatever criteria is for being born into citizenship is going to be codified in a law. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177/65 "2013-08-15T17:08:44Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Are you upset about that? Ruined your plans? Honestly, it’s a bit of a relief. I plan to take some time for my family—they’ve been great through this whole thing. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177/66 "2013-08-15T17:12:56Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > I’m not sure how that “doesn’t require a law”. Whatever criteria is for being born into citizenship is going to be codified in a law. It doesn’t require a law because if you can have any citizens at all, ones that are born in your country to two of your citizens must be citizens. Unless you go the “Starship Troopers” route of earned citizenship only. And so far that exists only in sci-fi books. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177/67 "2013-08-15T17:27:01Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Couldn’t that be considered a bill of attainder, though? Granted, those are usually thought of as being to punish an individual, not to reward them, but it’s still singling out an individual. In layman’s terms, a bill of attainder is an enactment that singles out an individual or group _to their detriment._ Congress is perfectly free (or at least has broad latitutde) to do _nice_ things for individuals and groups, such as declaring Ahnold a natural born citizen\*. What it can’t do is pass a bill that, say, revokes his citizenship (though it could have passed a bill revoking his permanent resident status before he was naturalized, thanks to the largely unique was Congress is allowed to regulate immigration matters under its foreign policy powers). \*Subject to other constitutional limitations, of course, such as the one being discussed above about how broadly it can define the term “natural born citizen”. ---
**Author:** ![aNewLeaf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@aNewLeaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aNewLeaf)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177/68 "2013-08-15T17:38:20Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > There is an argument to be made that “natural born citizen” refers to someone who is born into the citizenship not requiring any law to establish his citizenship - that is, someone born in the US to two US citizens. Constitution doesn’t require two parents be citizens. Or even one. Only way around that is to exclude the 14th Amendment from your worldview. > [@](#): > > ``` > Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States... > > ``` ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177/69 "2013-08-15T17:40:07Z")
> [@aNewLeaf](#): > > Constitution doesn’t require two parents be citizens. Or even one. > Only way around that is to exclude the 14th Amendment from your worldview. “Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States…”. I don’t see the “natural born citizen” definition in there. ---
**Author:** ![aNewLeaf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@aNewLeaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aNewLeaf)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177/70 "2013-08-15T17:45:31Z")
Natural-born is the opposite of naturalized. If you are a citizen and you weren’t naturalized, you were born a citizen. IOW: A natural-born citizen. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177/71 "2013-08-15T17:54:55Z")
> [@aNewLeaf](#): > > Natural-born is the opposite of naturalized. That’s one interpretation. Another, as I said, is that one is “naturally” a citizen. “Naturally” as in - cannot be argued otherwise under any reasonable definition of citizenship. As in “born to two citizens in the country of citizenship”. ---
**Author:** ![aNewLeaf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@aNewLeaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aNewLeaf)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177/72 "2013-08-15T17:56:44Z")
But your definition has no basis in the Constitution, it’s something you’re made up in your head. The Founders knew full well that citizens would be born with one or both parents as immigrants. The Founders weren’t trying to close off citizenship but open it up. Birthright citizenship is intended to be ‘liberal’ in application. > [@](#): > > “Naturally” as in - cannot be argued otherwise under any reasonable definition of citizenship. That would be ‘unarguably’, or perhaps ‘inarguably’. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177/73 "2013-08-15T18:02:57Z")
> [@aNewLeaf](#): > > But your definition has no basis in the Constitution Neither has yours. It’s something you made up in your head. The Constitution does not give a definition of “natural born citizen”. > [@](#): > > That would be ‘unarguably’, or perhaps ‘inarguably’. Or “naturally”. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177/74 "2013-08-15T18:19:54Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > There is an argument to be made that “natural born citizen” refers to someone who is born into the citizenship not requiring any law to establish his citizenship - that is, someone born in the US to two US citizens. > [@](#): > > … Additions might always be made to the citizenship of the United States in two ways: first, by birth, and second, by naturalization. This is apparent from the Constitution itself, for it provides that ‘no person except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President,’ and that Congress shall have power ‘to establish a uniform rule of naturalization.’ Thus new citizens may be born or they may be created by naturalization. > > The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. **Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts** , but never as to the first. **For the purposes of this case it is not necessary to solve these doubts**. …[RIGHT][MINOR v. HAPPERSETT, 88 U.S. 162 (1874)](http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=88&invol=162)[/RIGHT] Born in the US to two US citizens? Yes, NBC no doubts. Anything else? There’s no caselaw, the birthers would be citing _it_ if it existed. (Their entire argument AIUI is Minor and Emerich de Vattel’s _The Law of Nations_. (EdV the noted [del][COLOR=Black]Founding Father[/del][/COLOR] Swiss philosopher, diplomat, and legal expert.) CMC fnord! ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177/75 "2013-08-15T18:42:24Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > There is an argument to be made that “natural born citizen” refers to someone who is born into the citizenship not requiring any law to establish his citizenship - that is, someone born in the US to two US citizens. What law is required to establish the citizenship of a person born inside the United States? Their citizenship is established, not by law, but by the Constitution via the 14th Amendment: > [@](#): > > Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States… I guess I don’t see that the founding fathers, in their wisdom, must have meant to exclude people like John McCain from the presidency. The plain reading of the requirement that a president be “natural born” doesn’t imply any such thing. Natural born just means born a citizen, and there’s no case law to indicate otherwise. So that’s the status quo, and it makes perfect sense to reasonable people. What exactly do you want? The Supreme Court to declare that John McCain wasn’t eligible to run for president? They won’t do that. And even if they ruled on the issue, they’d rule in favor of the status quo, as you should surely know. So what you need is to amend the constitution to make your idiosyncratic definition of “natural born citizen” part of the constitution. That’s not going to happen, so we’re stuck with the common sense status quo. Surely you know that even if we did have a constitutional amendment to define “natural born” it would obviously support the status quo belief. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177/76 "2013-08-15T18:45:45Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > The plain reading of the requirement that a president be “natural born” doesn’t imply any such thing. Natural born just means born a citizen, and there’s no case law to indicate otherwise. It is your opinion that “natural born just means born a citizen”. It is not a fact. There is no caselaw that says it, either. > [@](#): > > So what you need is to amend the constitution to make your idiosyncratic definition of “natural born citizen” part of the constitution. That’s not going to happen, so we’re stuck with the common sense status quo. Surely you know that even if we did have a constitutional amendment to define “natural born” it would obviously support the status quo belief. No need to amend the Constitution. A SC decision defining “natural born citizen” would suffice. ---
**Author:** ![aNewLeaf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@aNewLeaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aNewLeaf)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177/77 "2013-08-15T18:46:51Z")
> [@](#): > > I guess I don’t see that the founding fathers, in their wisdom, must have meant to exclude people like John McCain from the presidency. Agreed, their intention was the opposite- “You were born in the US? You’re a citizen!”. > [@](#): > > It is your opinion that “natural born just means born a citizen”. It is not a fact. There is no caselaw that says it, either. No caselaw is needed, the Constitution rules alone. The Founders intended that citizens read it and understand it. It says what it says. ---
**Author:** ![Alley\_Dweller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alley_dweller/32/430_2.png) [@Alley\_Dweller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alley_Dweller)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177/78 "2013-08-15T18:50:33Z")
> [@aNewLeaf](#): > > Agreed, their intention was the opposite- “You were born in the US? You’re a citizen!”. > > No caselaw is needed, the Constitution rules alone. The Founders intended that citizens read it and understand it. It says what it says. The Founding Fathers were all dead and gone when the 14th Amendment was added. I don’t think that they intended that slaves, American Indians, or their descendents should be US citizens. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177/79 "2013-08-15T18:51:29Z")
> [@aNewLeaf](#): > > No caselaw is needed, the Constitution rules alone. The Founders intended that citizens read it and understand it. It says what it says. It says nothing about what “natural born citizen” means. ---
**Author:** ![Alley\_Dweller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alley_dweller/32/430_2.png) [@Alley\_Dweller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alley_Dweller)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177/80 "2013-08-15T18:55:50Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > It says nothing about what “natural born citizen” means. Agreed. It was probably obvious in the circles in which they traveled what “natural born” meant – so obvious they didn’t feel the need to elaborate. But somehow, that information got lost and now all we can do is read French philosophy of the era and speculate. So be it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177.md?page=5)