Page:Qualifications for President and the “Natural Born” Citizenship Eligibility Requirement.pdf/28



Citizenship at Birth: Case Law and Interpretations
The overwhelming evidence of historical intent, general understandings, and common law principles underlying American jurisprudence thus indicate that the most reasonable interpretation of “natural born” citizens would include those who are considered U.S. citizens “at birth” or “by birth,” either by the operation of the strict “common law” of jus soli derived from English common law (physically born in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction, without reference to parentage or lineage), or under existing federal statutory law incorporating long-standing concepts of jus sanguinis, the law of descent, including those born abroad of U.S. citizen-parents. This general historical understanding and interpretation is supported, as well, by specific federal case law in the United States, and in official legal opinions of U.S. officers.

Although the Supreme Court has not needed to rule specifically on the presidential eligibility clause, as discussed in more detail below, numerous federal cases, as well as state cases, for more than a century have used the term “natural born citizen” to describe a person born in this country and under its jurisdiction, even to parents who were aliens in the U.S. Additionally, several Supreme Court cases, as well as numerous constitutional scholars, have used the term “native born” citizen to indicate all of those children physically born in the country (and subject to its jurisdiction), without reference to parentage or lineage, and employed such term in reference to those citizens eligible to be President under the “natural born” citizenship clause, as opposed to “naturalized” citizens, who are not. In no currently controlling legal opinion in American jurisprudence has the citizenship or nationality of one’s parents or forebears been considered a determining factor in the eligibility of a native born U.S. citizen to be President, and no holding in any case in federal court has ever established a “two citizen-parent” requirement, or other requirement of lineage or bloodline, for a native born U.S. citizen to be eligible for the Presidency. Rh