# 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:** 6
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177/101 "2013-08-17T18:58:05Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Therefore, here in the actually existing world today, we’re in the wild west, and it is up to the individual voter, with no guidance from the Supreme Court, to enforce the “natural born” provision of the constitution. > > If that means you refuse to vote for John McCain because, although he seems like a good candidate in other ways, he was born in Panama and therefore you think he should not be eligible to be President, then you are free to do so. And note that Congress believed that McCain was eligible and acted to declare him a natural born citizen. But the Supreme Court doesn’t do this with other constitutional questions. It doesn’t take no position on abortion, for example, and say, “Hey, if the voters elect a legislature that outlaws abortion, then it must not be a constitutional right.” IOW, the constitution provides 4 things that must be done to be elected President: 1. Be a natural born citizen 2. Age 35 or older 3. Resident of the United States for the past 14 years. 4. Win a majority of the electoral college vote (or the tie-breaker in the House) By not enforcing, #1-#3, and letting them collapse into #4, the first three restrictions are meaningless and everything works out the same had they been left out of the Constitution entirely. It makes sense that when someone writes words, they did so for a purpose and not simply to make them a nullity. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177/102 "2013-08-17T19:19:12Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > That seems like a distinction without a difference. If Congress passed a law that defined citizens as “all persons born on the planet earth after January 1, 1890, with said citizenship bestowed upon them at the time of their birth” would that be okay? Sure, but it wouldn’t make those people natural born citizens unless a court decided that that was the definition. Congress has the power to make people citizens, but the extent to which that makes said citizen’s “naturally born” is up to the courts. > [@](#): > > If so, it eviscerates any constitutional limitations and allows Congress to define constitutional terms. (IOW, Congress has now effectively eliminated the “natural born citizen” requirement for President) No it doesn’t. The definition is still up to the courts. If SCOTUS rules that "natural born citizen"is whatever Congress says it is, then that would allow Congress to define constitutional terms, but that hasn’t happened. And even then, it wouldn’t be “unilaterial”, the definition would still depend on the Courts judgement, not Congresses. > [@](#): > > What other terms can Congress “redefine” out of existence? There are no terms in the Constitution that Congress can define out of existence\*. \*(well, I guess there are cases where the Constitution explicitly leaves it up to Congress: “high crimes and misdemeanors” for example, but in anycase “naturally born” isn’t such a case). ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177/103 "2013-08-17T20:00:18Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > Sure, but it wouldn’t make those people natural born citizens unless a court decided that that was the definition. Congress has the power to make people citizens, but the extent to which that makes said citizen’s “naturally born” is up to the courts. It sounds like we are in agreement then. So Ted Cruz, John McCain, and fictional Kenyan-born Obama are or are not natural born citizens based upon what a court would decide and has nothing to do with a law about the Canal Zone, or a law that says one parent can pass on her citizenship, or that fictional Obama’s mother was 19 and completed the residency requirement. All of those are laws which may or may not be the basis for “natural born” citizenship. So why all the discussion of these laws when we ponder if these people are eligible for President? ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177/104 "2013-08-17T20:13:08Z")
> [@Alley\_Dweller](#): > > Then what else could they have possibly meant by the requirement (at that time) that the parent had to live in the United States for five years after reaching age 14? What other interpretation of this clause is possible? > > And if young Barack had been born in Kenya, wouldn’t that mean that his mother hadn’t spent all of her time in the United States? I really don’t think the intent of the law was to deny citizenship to the child of an 18 year old woman who had lived all 18 years of her life in the U.S. except for let’s say the last couple weeks of her pregnancy spent abroad. Not when it would grant citizenship to the child of another woman, who was born in the U.S. to two vacationing Kenyans, who immediately returned home with her parents; but then she was sent to live with a cousin in the U.S. from her fourteenth to her nineteenth birthday (or fifteenth to twentieth, depending on how you read the law), after which she went back to Kenya again. Then, at age 40, she has a baby with a Kenyan father, having spent no further time in the U.S. than what was described above, and that child is a citizen. Does that really sound like a sensible intent? You asked “what other interpretation is possible”. I think it was sloppily written, but that the clear intent was to keep people who had only lived in the U.S. as young children from passing on U.S. citizenship within their countries of residence. They are kind of making two classes of U.S. citizens: those who have their own citizenship as long as they live, but cannot pass it on while living abroad; and those who are “citizen breeders” or whatever. As long as you have at least five years plus of fertility left, you can always convert into the “super” category; but again, I just don’t think they intended someone of marriageable age like Ann Dunham, who had lived in the U.S. virtually all her life and had American ancestors going back many generations, to be disqualified while the hypothetical woman I described would be eligible. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177/105 "2013-08-17T20:34:11Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > You asked “what other interpretation is possible”. I think it was sloppily written, but that the clear intent was to keep people who had only lived in the U.S. as young children from passing on U.S. citizenship within their countries of residence. They are kind of making two classes of U.S. citizens: those who have their own citizenship as long as they live, but cannot pass it on while living abroad; and those who are “citizen breeders” or whatever. As long as you have at least five years plus of fertility left, you can always convert into the “super” category; but again, I just don’t think they intended someone of marriageable age like Ann Dunham, who had lived in the U.S. virtually all her life and had American ancestors going back many generations, to be disqualified while the hypothetical woman I described would be eligible. Under the rules of statutory construction that most courts follow, if a law is unambiguous on its face, you don’t start looking into legislative intent. If the law says 5 years after age 14, there’s no ambiguity there. That would be the end of it. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177/106 "2013-08-17T20:50:43Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > It sounds like we are in agreement then. So Ted Cruz, John McCain, and fictional Kenyan-born Obama are or are not natural born citizens based upon what a court would decide and has nothing to do with a law about the Canal Zone, or a law that says one parent can pass on her citizenship, or that fictional Obama’s mother was 19 and completed the residency requirement. > > All of those are laws which may or may not be the basis for “natural born” citizenship. So why all the discussion of these laws when we ponder if these people are eligible for President? I don’t think we agree. A court may well decide that whether one is a natural born citizen depends on the laws when they were born. In that case what Congress decided the criteria for citizenship could well determine ones status as “natural born” or not. Again, the definition is up to the courts. But that definition may well include a dependence on statutory law. (indeed, prior to the 14th Amendment, it almost had to, since there was not Constitutionally mandated standard for citizenship for people born after 1776 except for empowering Congress to come up with some.) ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177/107 "2013-08-17T20:55:32Z")
> [@Habeed](#): > > What I don’t get is why it ultimately “matters”. It’s a technicality of a technicality. > > What difference does it make where the man was at the instant of birth? Suppose he were born in the USA, but 5 minutes later was hauled off to some indoctrination camp run by a hostile foreign power for the next 20 years. > > Versus the inverse : he exited his mother in a hostile foreign power, but 5 minutes later was rescued by seal team six, and he spent the rest of his life in AnyTown USA, becoming a football jock and attending Veteran’s day parades every year. > > The whole argument is not one of “I have legitimate qualms about Obama’s qualifications and I want Congress to ignore him” but instead “I want him removed from power due to a technicality”. Right, this is a great point. On the one hand, you can listen to Obama speak, and see him retail politicking, and see that he is definitely American, and not just technically American. He has an American accent when speaking, he makes little references and so on to things that only an American would. On the other hand, leaving his birth aside, he did live abroad for a number of years as a child, and not in a really culturally similar place like Canada (or even the UK or Australia). He has a “foreign” name. And he has siblings that were born and raised abroad. That is different from the background of the vast majority of Americans. I think it gives him an interesting perspective that is an asset; but I can’t hold it against someone if they see it as a reason not to vote for him, the way I would hold it against him if the reluctance is based purely or primarily on his skin colour. > [@Terr](#): > > What difference does it make if the man running for President is 34 years old and not 35? I think if someone were thought to have been born just before midnight on Nov. \_\_ of 35 years previous, but then it were somehow discovered that s/he was really born after midnight, it really wouldn’t make a meaningful difference. If they were discovered to be years younger and lying about it all that time, that would be something else entirely. In the case of Obama, there is no dispute as to who his parents are, the approximate date he was born, and where he lived his life (abroad and in the U.S.) other than maybe a matter of days or weeks when he was an infant. And even then, the only dispute is based on a poorly worded law putting 18 year old U.S. citizens in a different category from 19 year olds. I would argue btw that when the SCOTUS refuses to hear a case, they are implicitly making a decision: that the highest federal appeals court made the right call, and that it isn’t worth spending any more time on it than that. > [@jtgain](#): > > Under the rules of statutory construction that most courts follow, if a law is unambiguous on its face, you don’t start looking into legislative intent. If the law says 5 years after age 14, there’s no ambiguity there. That would be the end of it. While it wouldn’t apply in Obama’s (hypothetical, Kenyan-born) case, there is ambiguity even in the wording. Is “including five years after age 14” satisfied by someone being there all their life until their nineteenth birthday, or their twentieth? That is, does the year when they are exactly 14 count as one of the five years, or does the clock only start on that five years after they are no longer 14? ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177/108 "2013-08-17T21:12:17Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > While it wouldn’t apply in Obama’s (hypothetical, Kenyan-born) case, there is ambiguity even in the wording. Is “including five years after age 14” satisfied by someone being there all their life until their nineteenth birthday, or their twentieth? That is, does the year when they are exactly 14 count as one of the five years, or does the clock only start on that five years after they are no longer 14? So that ambiguity could be sorted out by using the legislative intent to see if it means 19 or 20. But it can’t mean 18. It can’t mean something it obviously doesn’t say. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177/109 "2013-08-17T21:14:44Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I really don’t think the intent of the law was to deny citizenship to the child of an 18 year old woman who had lived all 18 years of her life in the U.S. except for let’s say the last couple weeks of her pregnancy spent abroad. Not when it would grant citizenship to the child of another woman, who was born in the U.S. to two vacationing Kenyans, who immediately returned home with her parents; but then she was sent to live with a cousin in the U.S. from her fourteenth to her nineteenth birthday (or fifteenth to twentieth, depending on how you read the law), after which she went back to Kenya again. Then, at age 40, she has a baby with a Kenyan father, having spent no further time in the U.S. than what was described above, and that child is a citizen. Does that really sound like a sensible intent? > > You asked “what other interpretation is possible”. I think it was sloppily written, but that the clear intent was to keep people who had only lived in the U.S. as young children from passing on U.S. citizenship within their countries of residence. They are kind of making two classes of U.S. citizens: those who have their own citizenship as long as they live, but cannot pass it on while living abroad; and those who are “citizen breeders” or whatever. As long as you have at least five years plus of fertility left, you can always convert into the “super” category; but again, I just don’t think they intended someone of marriageable age like Ann Dunham, who had lived in the U.S. virtually all her life and had American ancestors going back many generations, to be disqualified while the hypothetical woman I described would be eligible. It’s like saying that the “35 year old” requirement in the Constitution is not really 35 years, it just means that the candidate should be a mature, solid adult. So if one is such at 33, he should be allowed to run. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2013, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177/110 "2013-08-18T23:57:42Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > I don’t think we agree. A court may well decide that whether one is a natural born citizen depends on the laws when they were born. In that case what Congress decided the criteria for citizenship could well determine ones status as “natural born” or not. > > Again, the definition is up to the courts. But that definition may well include a dependence on statutory law. (indeed, prior to the 14th Amendment, it almost had to, since there was not Constitutionally mandated standard for citizenship for people born after 1776 except for empowering Congress to come up with some.) A court may decide that. It also may decide that by its very definition, the term “natural” applies to an inherent concept outside of statutory law. In fact, because a statute had to be enacted to make Cruz, McCain, and fake Obama citizens, then that makes them de facto NOT “natural” born citizens. What standards would they use? Who knows, but **Terr** outlined a pretty good argument. Obviously a person born on American soil from two American parents is naturally born by any definition. And just because that same kid was born prematurely in Niagara Falls, Ontario to the same parents visiting the falls would probably be just the same. Other things? I dunno, maybe. We would all be guessing. But I don’t think that statutory construction means anything in this situation except to the point that if the court thought that Congress was acting in good faith, it might see things the same way. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 9:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177/111 "2013-08-19T09:43:21Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > So that ambiguity could be sorted out by using the legislative intent to see if it means 19 or 20. But it can’t mean 18. It can’t mean something it obviously doesn’t say. I think it’s pretty obvious it didn’t mean either 19 or 20, so that would almost certainly be a fruitless search for legislative intent to point one way or the other. Didn’t this law subsequently get changed precisely because it was so poorly thought out? Let me re-pose my previous question a different way. Let’s imagine that, when the law in question was originally debated, someone pointed out to the lawmakers something like: > [@](#): > > If this bill is passed as currently written, it will make perverse distinctions I do not believe the members of this body intend. Let’s imagine two boys, named Adam and Beb. > > Adam’s mother is named Ann. Ann is an American citizen. All her ancestors going back to the time of the Revolution have lived their entire lives on American soil. When Ann was 18 years old, she got married to a Canadian man and soon after their honeymoon, she became pregnant. Late in the pregnancy, she took a trip across the border to see her husband’s boyhood home. She unexpectedly went into labor and had to rush to a Canadian hospital to give birth to Adam, who was born a minute before midnight on the day before Ann’s 19th birthday. They returned to the U.S. the next day, and Ann has vowed never to leave U.S. soil again after her traumatic experience. > > Only problem is, Adam is not a U.S. citizen. > > So the legislation’s strict, you say. Unfortunate in such a case, but simply a problem that arises from having strict standards. > > But the standards, as currently written, are not consistently strict. To illustrate, let’s consider Beb, and his mother Bahiti. > > Bahiti was born in the U.S. to two Egyptians, visiting the country for a week’s vacation (Bahiti’s mother was pushing her luck, but since she was not due for another month she thought she had time). They had never been to the U.S. before, and they immediately returned home with Bahiti, never returning Stateside. Bahiti then grew up entirely in Egypt, but her parents loved to brag about her manner of birth, and show off her U.S. passport. They anticipated having Egyptian-born grandchildren who were also legally Americans, and so on down the line. “Just in case” an American passport ever came in handy, you know. > > A legally-minded friend made them aware however that this dream of theirs would not pan out unless she lived there for five years as an adult (or at least past age fourteen). So they sent Bahiti to college in the U.S., on the five year plan. Once that box was checked, Bashiti came back to Egypt, where she has lived ever since. A few years later, she married an Egyptian man who has never even visited the U.S., and they had a son named Beb. Beb will now be a U.S. citizen all his life, even if he never steps foot on U.S. soil. Decades from now, he could be an old man, his mother and grandparents long gone, and he could still decide to move to the U.S. and take advantage of Medicaid etc. > > Is this the kind of distinction you wish this law to make? My question is: had this been so carefully pointed out to the legislators, would they really have left every jot and tittle just as is? ---
**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 19, 2013, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177/112 "2013-08-19T14:11:13Z")
**Terr** is absolutely correct here. People (or at least **aNewLeaf** ) seem to be reading something into his posts that really isn’t there. The Constitution does not define the term “natural born citizen”. Now, we can (and do) make certain _assumptions_ about what they meant by the phrase, but we cannot say with any certainty that the Framers meant X. ---
**Author:** ![aNewLeaf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@aNewLeaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aNewLeaf)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177/113 "2013-08-19T14:15:26Z")
Certainly we can, it’s right there in the document. There are two ways to be a citizen, by naturalization, an act of man. Or by birth, an act of nature. If you were a citizen at birth you were born a citizen. Natural citizenship by birth. Natural born citizen. It’s not hard to understand if you’ve read a bit of Jefferson’s writings, it’s quite Jeffersonian in concept. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177/114 "2013-08-19T14:36:34Z")
> [@aNewLeaf](#): > > Certainly we can, it’s right there in the document. > There are two ways to be a citizen, by naturalization, an act of man. Or by birth, an act of nature. > If you were a citizen at birth you were born a citizen. Natural citizenship by birth. Natural born citizen. Yes, that’s one possible interpretation. There can be others. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177/115 "2013-08-19T14:59:22Z")
> [@aNewLeaf](#): > > Certainly we can, it’s right there in the document. No it isn’t. > [@](#): > > There are two ways to be a citizen, by naturalization, an act of man. Or by birth, an act of nature. > If you were a citizen at birth you were born a citizen. Natural citizenship by birth. Natural born citizen. While natural born citizen is clearly related to the circumstances of a person’s birth, what those exact circumstances are is not defined. Some citizens are citizens _by_ birth who were not citizens _at_ birth, for example John McCain. While it may be assumed that anyone who was a citizen _at_ birth is a natural born citizen, it is not so clear in the case of those who were not. ---
**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 19, 2013, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177/116 "2013-08-19T15:00:29Z")
> [@aNewLeaf](#): > > Certainly we can, it’s right there in the document. > There are two ways to be a citizen, by naturalization, an act of man. Or by birth, an act of nature. It’s not right there within the document. Birth within arbitrarily defined national boundaries is hardly an “act of nature”. I agree (as does **Terr** , from what I’ve read) that this is the most _logical_ interpretation, but it isn’t the _only_ one. ---
**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 19, 2013, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177/117 "2013-08-19T15:05:02Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > My question is: had this been so carefully pointed out to the legislators, would they really have left every jot and tittle just as is? Maybe not, but we will never know. But we do know that courts enforce the laws as actually written and passed by Congress, not the laws they think Congress would have passed had Congress had more information or thought it through more carefully. Nor do they enforce the laws that opponents of the law think Congress should have passed instead, no matter how persuasive the arguments of the opponents might seem. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177/118 "2013-08-19T15:26:26Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > My question is: had this been so carefully pointed out to the legislators, would they really have left every jot and tittle just as is? You’re referring to people who scattered commas at random all over the document, right? “Natural-born” could mean not from his mother’s womb untimely ripp’d, too. ---
**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 19, 2013, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177/119 "2013-08-19T15:38:13Z")
Bah. Even the alternative intepretation makes me constitutionally ineligible. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Tee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@Tee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tee)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177/120 "2013-08-19T16:24:44Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > While natural born citizen is clearly related to the circumstances of a person’s birth, what those exact circumstances are is not defined. Some citizens are citizens _by_ birth who were not citizens _at_ birth, for example John McCain. While it may be assumed that anyone who was a citizen _at_ birth is a natural born citizen, it is not so clear in the case of those who were not. Unless I missed something, I doubt it’s been resolved that McCain was not a citizen at birth. The circumstances of my birth are similar to his, born elsewhere to US citizens, one on active duty. Geographic location didn’t seem to be the determining factor in my case, and I’m not sure why it would be in his. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/setting-the-record-straight-on-americans-born-overseas-and-the-presidency/666177.md?page=7)