The law was different in 1936 when McCain was born.
The law back then was phrased in such a way that NO ONE born in the Panama Canal Zone would automatically become a citizen. Because of the way the law was phrased and because of the unique status of the Canal Zone, it was apparently the only place in the world where this applied. In 1937, one year after McCain was born, Congress passed a special law that applied only to the Canal Zone that made everyone born there to a US Citizen parent after 1904 a citizen.
Congress had to pass a statute defining children born to US parents in the Panama Canal Zone (and some other places) as NBCs. You were probably born long after its passage.
The law made them citizens. It said absolutely nothing about whether they were or weren’t Natural Born Citizens (NBCs). Please read the law, it’s very short.
I understand that much, but the question makes two separate assumptions: that baby McCain was not eligible for citizenship due to location of birth, and that it was then granted by the 1937 law.
McCain could have, and probably did, attain citizenship at birth due to both parents being US citizens, married, and (at least one) in military service on active duty. I do not think it has ever been resolved that he was not, in fact, a citizen at birth under those conditions.
Just saying “attain citizenship at birth due to both parents being US citizens, married, and (at least one) in military service on active duty” does not make it so if the law in 1936 did not say so.
There is not much reasoning to assess, just the statement that McCain was not born a citizen and (or because) no statute in effect at the time applied to births in the Panama Canal Zone. The idea of a problem area, a “no man’s land” being in effect suggests a debate, an open question, some kind of decision-making process and is therefore subject to habit, custom, precedent, courtesy, protocol, special dispensation, or whatever. Chin spends no time on that from what I can see and supplies only the judgement. His own.
Yeah, you obviously missed something. Unless you were born in the Panama Canal Zone before 1937, your situation is irrelevant to McCain’s. McCain’s father’s military status also had nothing to do with the question. I explained early in the thread the unique status of the Canal Zone and why according to the law prevailing in 1936 children born to US citizens in the Zone technically did not qualify for US citizenship at birth. The fact that the law was changed in 1937 specifically to grant them citizenship indicates that they were, in fact, not citizens.
Well, not necessarily. It indicates that there was a question about whether they were citizens. There is a great deal of case law indicating that individuals born in Panama during the relevant period are not US citizens, absent the statute (US v. Connolly, 552 F.3d 86, for example). However, there is none indicating whether individuals born in the PCZ during the period would not otherwise be citizens.