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What is a "Natural Born Citizen"?

Herbert Titus
Constitutional Scholar

Go to
http://theinteramerican.org/blogs/law-and-government/332-is-president-obama-a-natural-born-citizen.html 
for Herb Titus's assessment of what is a "natural born citizen". 

Titus says that there is a distinction between a "citizen by birth" and a "natural born citizen".  

A citizen by birth is one who is born on American soil with parents who are here lawfully.  This was a category created by the 14th Amendment to make newly freed slaves citizens.  They had been denied that citizenship by the infamous Dred Scott decision.  The 14th Amendment clearly was not a part of the original Constitution, and had nothing to do with being president. 

The "natural born citizen" category was in the Constitution from the beginning, and applies only to the President specifically, not to any other officer or person.  It assumes that there is a "law of nature", which applies naturally to a constitution, relying on the nature of birth and of nations themselves.  It states that any person who is born of parents who are both legitimate citizens of a country is "naturally" a citizen of that country.  That is the logical conclusion because of the nature of birth and the nature of nations.  Thus "natural" born. 

Obama's parents were not both American citizens, by the very statement of the supposed birth certificate from Hawaii.  So being born in Hawaii does not make Barak Obama a natural born citizen, only a citizen by birth as per the 14th Amendment, which means that he is not qualified to be president of the United States.  The place of birth is irrelevant, the citizenship of parents is the deciding factor. 

That implies that we must revise the 14th amendment so that babies of foreign parents do not become citizens by merely being born on American land (anchor babies, as they are called).  They should be considered citizens of the land of which the parents are citizens. 

If the new born's parents were of differing countries, those countries would have to decide on the citizenship of the baby.  But the baby would not be a "natural born" citizen of any country. 

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Date Posted - 01/31/2012   -   Date Last Edited - 01/31/2012