Natural born citizen

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Natural born citizen ( engl. , Dt. About: (as such) born citizen) has a turn of the Constitution of the United States , the eligibility for President of the United States more closely defined.

Relevant passage in the US Constitution of 1787

Wording and background

Clause 5 in Section 1 of Article 2 reads:

“No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States. "

“No one except a born citizen or anyone who was a citizen of the United States at the time this Constitution was adopted shall be eligible for election to the office of President. [...] "

This regulation was intended to secure the new democratic form of government of the young republic. The Constitutional Fathers wanted to exclude that influential foreigners, for example European nobles, after obtaining American citizenship , using their power and property, could reach the presidency.

meaning

The term natural born citizen is nowhere further specified in the Constitution, and no case has yet been heard in the United States Supreme Court . Hence there have been and are different views as to the exact meaning of this clause. The term natural born subject ( English , dt. About: (as such) born subject), as it was defined by William Blackstone , was in use during the colonial era.

“Naturally born subjects are those born under the rule of the Crown of England ... The children of foreigners born here in England are generally naturally born subjects and are entitled to all of the privileges of such. In which the Constitution of France differs from ours; because there ... if a child is born to foreign parents, it is a foreigner. "

- William Blackstone : Commentaries on the Laws of England, Volume 1 , 1765

According to the Supreme Court, words and expressions used but not defined in the Constitution " should be read in the light of British common law " since the US Constitution "is written in English common law ." The legal scholar Eugene Volokh of the UCLA School of Law , writes that natural born subject served the constitutional fathers as the basis for natural born citizen .

Since the place of birth (also ius soli ) has applied in the USA - at the latest since the 14th Amendment to the Constitution - it is clear that every person who is born on the soil of the USA is a natural born citizen in the sense of the constitution, regardless of what nationality his parents have. The only exceptions to this are members of diplomatic missions and foreign armies. It is also clear that someone who became a citizen of the USA for the first time through naturalization cannot be elected as President or Vice President, whereby this is the only legal difference between naturalized and natural born citizens.

The status of foreign-born children of American parents is controversial. According to the principle of descent , which applies in the USA in addition to the principle of birthplace, these are automatically also citizens of the USA. Whether this is enough to make them natural born citizens has not been definitively clarified.

This clause was important in the 2008 presidential election because the Republican candidate , Senator John McCain , was born in the Panama Canal Zone , which at the time was within US jurisdiction but outside its actual borders. The Senate unanimously declared that McCain was a natural born citizen and therefore eligible for election. However, this declaration was not binding, as only a constitutional amendment or a ruling by the Supreme Court could have clarified this question.

The Congressional Research Service of the US Congress said in 2011 that legal and historical evidence indicated that the term "natural born citizen" refers to a person who is US citizenship "by birth" or "from birth". This could happen through birth in the USA and in areas under their jurisdiction, even if the parents are not American citizens. It also includes children of American citizens born abroad, as well as other cases in which the legal requirements for American citizenship are met “from birth”.

Candidates Born Outside the United States

Charles Curtis , Vice President under Herbert Hoover , was born in Kansas when it was not yet a state in the United States. Likewise, Barry Goldwater , a 1964 presidential candidate , was born in what is now Arizona before it became a state.

George W. Romney , the father of 2012 candidate Mitt Romney , ran for the Republican candidacy in 1968 , but was defeated by Richard Nixon . From February 1967, his birth in Mexico was cited by various politicians as the reason that he was not eligible for election as president. Since he gave up his candidacy in the spring of 1968, this was never decided in court.

John McCain , a presidential candidate in 2000 and 2008, was born on a US military base in Panama. In 2008 the US Senate voted unanimously in favor of a non-legally binding resolution that McCain was a natural born citizen .

Ted Cruz , Republican Senator for Texas, was a candidate for the 2016 presidential election, but has already failed in the primaries. Cruz was born on December 22, 1970 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada to a Cuban father and an American mother. While his competitor Donald Trump publicly questioned Cruz's eligibility, more independent voices tended to affirm his eligibility as a child of an American parent.

"Birther" Claims

About Barack Obama

Several groups known as "Birther" refer to the term natural born citizen who claim that Barack Obama was wrongly President of the United States because he did not meet this eligibility requirement. In particular, they doubt that Obama was born in the United States and deduce from this that he is not a natural born citizen . Documents showing that Obama was born in the state of Hawaii on August 4, 1961 , such as his birth certificate or a birth announcement in the Honolulu Advertiser newspaper dated August 13-14. August 1961, reject them as a forgery or part of a conspiracy and provide various theories about the "true" birthplace of Obama.

The published long form of the birth certificate did indeed have irregularities, but there are indications that these were caused by a software bug known as the Xerox Bug .

The "Birther Movement", of which the later US President Donald Trump was one of the leading representatives , attracted a lot of attention. According to a July 2010 survey by CNN Opinion Research , a good quarter of Americans believed Obama was “likely” or “definitely” born abroad. However, all related charges were dismissed by the courts as unfounded, as plaintiffs were unable to provide sufficient evidence to suggest that Obama's birthplace was different.

About Kamala Harris

Alternatively, the "Birther Movement" claims that in addition to a domestic birth, a natural born citizen must also have parents who were both citizens at the time of birth. A variant justified in this way was directed against the candidate for the office of US Vice President, Kamala Harris , shortly after her nomination . Another allegation, picked up and widely spread by Donald Trump, in a guest article by lawyer John Eastman of the conservative Claremont Institute in Newsweek magazine , is that she was not eligible because her parents were non-naturalized immigrants when she was born in Oakland , California . This was immediately contradicted by other legal scholars such as Eugene Volokh of the UCLA School of Law , the White House issued a clarification stating that Kamala Harris was eligible to serve as vice president, and Newsweek issued a corrigendum and apology.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Jack Maskell: Qualifications for President and the “Natural Born” Citizenship Eligibility Requirement . Congressional Research Service , Washington, DC November 14, 2011, pp. 2 (English, fas.org [PDF; accessed on August 14, 2020]).
  2. ^ William Blackstone: Commentaries on the Laws of England, Volume 1 . Clarendon Press, Oxford 1765, pp. 354-362 (English, google.com ).
  3. ↑ a b Eugene Volokh: Yes, Kamala Harris Is Indeed a Natural Born Citizen. In: Reason . August 10, 2020, accessed on August 14, 2020 .
  4. ↑ Originalism And The Natural Born Citizen Clause ( Memento of the original dated February 4, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 107 kB), essay by Professor Lawrence B. Solum, accessed on July 3, 2012 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.michiganlawreview.org
  5. ^ McCain's Birth Abroad Stirs Legal Debate , Washington Post, May 2, 2008, accessed July 3, 2012
  6. ↑ Qualifications for President and the 'Natural Born' Citizenship Eligibility Requirement (PDF; 584 kB) In: Congressional Research Service report . Federation of American Scientists . November 14, 2011. Retrieved June 7, 2012: “The weight of legal and historical authority indicates that the term“ natural born ”citizen would mean a person who is entitled to US citizenship“ by birth ”or“ at birth, ”either by being born “in” the United States and under its jurisdiction, even those born to alien parents; by being born abroad to US citizen-parents; or by being born in other situations meeting legal requirements for US citizenship "at birth." Such term, however, would not include a person who was not a US citizen by birth or at birth, and who was thus born an “alien” required to go through the legal process of “naturalization” to become a US citizen. (P. 2) "
  7. ↑ Romney's birth certificate evokes his father's controversy , Chicago Tribune, May 29, 2012, accessed July 3, 2012
  8. ↑ S.Res. 511 (110th): A resolution recognizing that John Sidney McCain, III, is a natural born citizen. www.govtrack.us, accessed January 31, 2017.
  9. ↑ Ted Cruz's Presidential Eligibility - factcheck.org.Retrieved January 31, 2017
  10. ↑ David Kriesel: Don't trust a scan that you haven't faked yourself. Retrieved on April 10, 2020 (English, up to minute 6 and from minute 53).
  11. ↑ CNN Opinion Research poll on Obama's country of birth (PDF; 391 kB) Retrieved June 7, 2012
  12. ^ John C. Eastman: Some Questions for Kamala Harris About Eligibility. In: Newsweek . August 12, 2020, accessed on August 20, 2020 .
  13. ↑ Jason Lemon: Trump Officials Confirm They Believe Kamala Harris Is Eligible to Be VP, After President Refuses to Say She Is. In: Newsweek . August 16, 2020, accessed on August 20, 2020 .
  14. ^ Nancy Cooper, Josh Hammer: Editor's Note: Eastman's Newsweek Column Has Nothing to Do With Racist Birtherism. In: Newsweek . August 13, 2020, accessed on August 20, 2020 .