[EL] Who is a "Natural Born Citizen

Fri Jan 8 10:18:25 PST 2016

Comments on your various scenarios:

1. But not children of foreign ambassadors or hostile/occupying forces (or originally Indians because they were considered to belong to a separate sovereign, though this was changed by statute). And some people dispute whether birthright citizenship is constitutionally required versus merely statutory. The best recent exemplars of both sides of the debate are Jim Ho (constitutional) and John Eastman (statutory).

2. Depends on the details regarding the one-parent scenario, as I wrote in my oped about Cruz. There's also a wrinkle regarding whether the one parent is the father or mother, including statute of limitations on proof of paternity -- there was a Supreme Court case taking this up in the last five years. Also, it's not Mitt Romney's eligibility that was at issue in this way, but his father George Romney's (born in Mexico).

3. Correct, though unless we have octogenarian Alaskans/Hawaiians running in future or annex Canada, I don't think we'll ever face the issue again.

4. Yes probably -- again there's some open question on whether these are separate sovereigns, especially Puerto Rico (see Sanchez-Valle case to be argued at Supreme Court next week), but not Samoa, whose residents are US "nationals," but not citizens - and this is the subject of ongoing litigation.

5. Not sure that military bases (or embassies, for that matter) count as US soil for this purpose - interesting research question, and probably depends in part on the SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement) operative in the particular country. The terrorist baby wouldn't count regardless where born because hostile force (see 1).

6. International airspace/water doesn't count - private commercial ships/planes don't carry sovereignty with them in this way. More interesting question would be a plane overlying the continental United States or a cruise ship that enters US waters but hasn't docked yet - don't know the answer to those.

Thanks for the mini law school exam!

Ilya Shapiro
Senior Fellow in Constitutional Studies,
Editor-in-Chief of the Cato Supreme Court Review
Cato Institute
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-----Original Message-----
From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Mozaffar, Shaheen
Sent: Friday, January 08, 2016 12:51 PM
To: law-election at uci.edu
Subject: [EL] Who is a "Natural Born Citizen

I would greatly appreciate help from the constitutional experts on this list on the following criteria raised by students about the definition of a "natural born" citizen" and hence eligibility for becoming US President:

1.  A person born in any of one of the 50 states, regardless of the parents' citizenship (straightforward)

2.  A person born anywhere in the world and at least one or both parents are a US citizen, either natural-born or naturalized (Examples: Senator McCain, Senator Cruz and Mr. Romney).

3.  A person born in any one of the 50 states, regardless of the parents' citizenship when the state was a territory, and was grandfathered (e.g. Senator Goldwater)

4.  A person born in Puerto Rico, Guam, Virgin Islands, and Northern Mariana Islands regardless of parents' citizenship

4.  A person born on an overseas American military base, regardless of parents' citizenships.  This would apply, for example, to children of local employees who are contracted to work for the military or the US embassy and could be eligible for medical treatment, including, childbirth, in US medical facilities.  An intriguing hypothetical:  What about a newborn child of a female terrorist-suspect incarcerated in Guantanamo?  Is the newborn a US citizen

5.  A person born on a US-based airline travelling in international airspace or a US-based ship travelling in international water, regardless of parents' citizenship

Thank you!

****************************************
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