There has been much debate regarding the interpretation of the various types of Citizenship bestowed upon U.S. persons, resulting from accusations of ineligibleness concerning three Presidential candidates in the 2008 Election: Barack Obama, John McCain, and Roger Calero. I am not going to go into detail regarding my viewpoint on if the candidates were eligible or not, but I will lend a hand in ending the confusion of the types of Citizenship a U.S. resident can be labeled as. Since the U.S. Consitution is the Law of the Land, I will use it and a bit of logical reasoning as the only sources of my argument.
The U.S. Constitution is a short read--21 pages--, so I recommend you obtain a copy--download it from the internet for free--and read it in full so you can check my work.
The U.S. Constitution provides no definition for the types of Citizenship used in its text,--there's no glossary in the back of the book per se--but they can be distinguished by relating them to the context in which they are applied. The U.S. Constitution declares five types of Citizenship:
1. Citizen
2. Born Citizen
3. Naturalized Citizen
4. Natural Born Citizen
5. Citizen at the Time of Adoption of U.S. Constitution
The fact that there are five types of Citizenships named in the U.S. Constitution undoubtedly means that the authors of the U.S. Constitution designated a different implication and use for each. Why else would they have utilized five different terms?
1. Citizen
a) The authors of the U.S. Constitution wrote in Article 1, Section 2, that:
No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States,...
b) The Framers of the U.S. Constitution wrote in Article 1, Section 3, that:
No person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States,...
2. Born Citizen
a) The Framers of the Constitution recorded in Amendment 14, Paragraph 1, that:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States...
3. Naturalized Citizen
a) The Framers of the U.S. Constitution penned in Article 1, Section 8, that a power of Congress is:
To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization,...
b) The Framers of the U.S. Constitution penned in Amendment 14, Paragraph 1, that:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States...
4. Natural Born Citizen
a) The Framers of the U.S. Constitution inked in Article 2, Section 1, that:
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;...
5. Citizen at the Time of Adoption of U.S. Constitution
a) The Framers of the U.S. Constitution worded in Article 2, Section 1, that:
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;...
Let's look at points 2a and 3b above. "All persons 'born' or 'naturalized' in the United States are Citizens. This phrase clearly discerns two different types of citizens: Born citizens and Naturalized citizens.
Born Citizen is a person that was birthed on U.S. soil. In other words, the U.S. is saying, "Hey! You were born within the bounds of our country, so you are a U.S. Citizen!"
Naturalized Citizen is a person who was not born on U.S. soil, but through Lawful processes is given U.S. Citizenship. Two examples of this type of Citizen are, one, a foreigner that has completed the U.S. immigration process or, two, a person born to a male U.S. military employee and a female U.S. military employee on a U.S. military base outside the boundary of U.S. soil.
In points 2a and 3b, the phrase "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" holds important meaning. If we look at points 1a and 1b, we can see that a Representative and Senator must be Citizens. So isn't it obvious that a Citizen cannot be just anybody living in the U.S.? Would we allow an Illegal Alien to hold a governmental position? The word Citizen has definite meaning, and it is given in points 2a and 3b as "persons... subject to the jurisdiction thereof (to the U.S.)."
Some feel the term Citizen should include all persons in the U.S., regardless if they're in the U.S. legally or illegally and that not including everyone isn't a fair attitude, as if the U.S. is some sort of all-inclusive Holy Land. To adopt this attitude is dangerous; a threat to the national defense of the U.S. The Preamble to the U.S. Constitution states:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
The Preamble is the reasoning basis for the Constitution; thus, one shouldn't suppose that its Framers implied that anybody from anywhere was a Citizen. What they were implying was that a U.S. Citizen was someone born from parents who were legal U.S. Citizens.
Neither of the two Citizenship options aforementioned, Born or Naturalized Citizen, have said anything about being a Natural Born Citizen. Even though the labels carry similar words in their titles--natural born citizen/naturalized citizen and natural born citizen/born citizen--they are distinctively different.
Being a Natural Born Citizen, Naturalized Citizen, and Born Citizen, is not the same. If a Born Citizen is born on U.S. soil and a Naturalized Citizen is born off soil, but is at a later date legally granted U.S. Citizenship, then is a Natural Born Citizen some kind of mix between being a Born Citizen and a Naturalized Citizen, you may wonder.
No. It is not.
The key to understanding the term Natural Born Citizen is to understand the phrase in points 4a and 5a that states: "No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution,...".
The fact that the Framers of the U.S. Constitution placed the word 'or' between "natural born Citizen" and "a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution" means that they meant to define two different classes of persons. A bit of history will help us understand the distinction....
The Framers of the U.S. Constitution escaped British rule to come to America and establish a new form of government that was fairer to them and all other people. Even though they fled their homeland, they were honest enough to make it known that since they were born under British sovereignty, they themselves still held the bond of British Citizenship, regardless if they liked it or not. This is why they included in Article 2, Section 1, of the U.S. Constitution, "No person except... a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President;...". To include themselves as able to be President, they basically said: Hey! Someone has to be President. So we'll say, persons alive when the U.S. Constitution is put in play, even though they're British Citizens, are eligible to be President. But no one born afterwards can do this.
What this implies is that no one holding Dual Citizenship, meaning being a Citizen of more than one country, except those alive during the adoption of the U.S. Constitution, are considered a Natural Born Citizen. Why did they exclude others from doing what they allowed themselves to do? Were they just being mean? Were they unfair? No. That's not it. They were protecting the newly formed country from political invaders.
So what is a Natural Born Citizen then? Let's deduce it's meaning by overviewing what it is not:
A) A person born to illegal aliens - not even a Citizen.
B) A person born off U.S. soil that becomes a legal inhabitant of the U.S. - Naturalized Citizen.
C) A person born on U.S. soil to parents that are U.S. Citizens - Born Citizen.
D) A person born to parents with Dual Citizenship - Born Citizen. (Citizenship-status is transferred from the parent to the child, or else a person born to illegal aliens on U.S. soil would be a U.S. Citizen.)
Hence, the only logical meaning for a Natural Born Citizen is: a person born on U.S. soil to parents who are U.S. Citizens holding no bonds of Dual Citizenship.
One can easily look up Barack Obama's, John McCain's, and Roger Calero's history of birth, and see that neither of these three 2008 Presidential Candidates are Natural Born Citizens.
