II. The Good Professor's argument with regard to the blood of the nation amounts to quibbling over the amount of blood required.
Pertinent Links:
"Citizenship and Nationality: Historical Foundation and Framework".
"The Natural-Born Citizen Clause of the Constitution".
"A Compendium of the Statutory History of Jus Sanguinis".
Again, the essence of the historical construct of natural-born citizenship goes to both the soil and the blood of the nation, and there are only two kinds of U.S. citizenship:
(1) natural-born citizenship and
(2) naturalized citizenship, that which is conferred at the moment of birth and that which is conferred subsequent to birth, respectively.
There is no other kind of citizenship conferred by the government of the United States of America!
Of course, since
Wong Kim Ark, natural-born citizenship may be predicated on just the soil of the nation by the
jus soli rule, while the claim on the soil is imputed
de jure by
jus sanguinis to persons duly born abroad of U.S. citizens. (But, then, that has always been the case for the latter. In that regard, neither the Fourteenth Amendment nor
Wong Kim Ark changed anything.) In other words at birth—akin to a native-born citizen of the nation's blood, as opposed to an anchor baby—such persons are of both the blood and the soil of the nation based on their biological connection and on their parent(s)'s prior, duly established claim on the soil.
Either way, natural-born citizenship is ultimately bottomed on the soil of the nation, either directly or indirectly.
Now laying the birthright citizenship of
Wong Kim Ark aside for the moment, the Good Professor's argument is silly.
The Natural Born Citizen Clause (NBCC) of the Constitution does not stipulate that both parents have to be of the blood of the nation. In fact, the construct of natural-born citizenship is not defined in the Constitution because it's essence was already well-established and defined in history, and its essence has nothing whatsoever to do with the number
2. That number is strictly a matter of political discretion and nothing more. The essence of the construct is that the person upon whom the honor is bestowed be directly tied to the blood of the nation that he may be directly or indirectly tied to the soil of the nation at the moment of birth.
Could the Framers have stipulated in the NBCC that both parents had to be U.S. citizens? Sure. But they didn't. They wisely left that to Congress' discretion. The other thing they left to Congress' discretion is the invocation of the prerogative of
jus sanguinis, the historically inherent property of the construct.
Hence, from 1790 to 1802, Congress stipulated that in order for persons born abroad to be U.S. citizens at birth, both their parents had to be U.S. citizens. From 1802 to 1855, Congress withheld the grant of citizenship at birth by
jus sanguinis for those born abroad. During those years, one had to be born on U.S. soil of at least one U.S. citizen parent in order to be a citizen at birth. From 1855 to 1934, only the father of a child born abroad had to be a U.S. citizen in order for his child to be a U.S. citizen at birth. Since 1934, a person born abroad is a U.S. citizen at birth as long as at least one of his parents is a U.S. citizen, mother or father. Discretion.
What is the one constant?
Answer: the blood of the person conferred citizenship at birth is of the blood of the nation and is tied, directly or indirectly, to the soil of the nation at the moment of birth.
Hence, the Good Professor's contention that only a person born within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States of U.S. citizen parents (plural) can be a natural-born citizen is absurd.
There has never been a time in U.S. history when a person duly born abroad of U.S. citizen(s)—i.e., while under the aegis of a prevailing decree of
jus sanguinis—was not a natural-born citizen.
George Romney (born in Mexico), Lowell Weicker (born in France) and John McCain (born in Panama): all of these presidential candidates were natural-born citizens, though, technically, McCain was not due to a legal oversight.
* Should Cruz (born in Canada) run for the presidency, he too will have Congress' and the State Department's blessings.
The Good Professor's contention that a person born within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States of only
one U.S. citizen (the other parent a foreigner, for example, President Chester Arthur and President Barack Obama) is doubly absurd.
There has never been a time when a person born of at lease one U.S. citizen, mother or father, within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States for constitutional purposes was not a natural-born citizen.
Bobby Jindal and Marco Rubio:
Prior to
Wong Kim Ark, neither Jindal nor Rubio would have been a natural-born citizen of the United States . . .
because neither one of their respective sets of parents were U.S. citizens at the time of their births on U.S. soil. Instead, they would have been citizens of India and Cuba, respectively, just like their parents. But since they were born after that decision of 1898 in which the Court declared that the United States had, at least since the moment of the Fourteenth Amendment's ratification, conferred birthright citizenship: both Jindal and Rubio were citizens
at birth, i.e., natural-born citizens.
The Internet is rife with opinions proffered by know-nothings who cite this or that historically prominent authority on the NBCC, including Madison who died decades before
Wong Kim Ark, and conclude that persons granted citizenship at the moment of birth, albeit, born of only one U.S. citizen or born abroad of U.S. citizen(s), cannot be natural-born . . . as if there were any other kind of formal category of citizenship besides that which is conferred subsequent to birth (naturalized citizenship) in constitutional, case or statutory law.
These are the same know-nothings who go on about how the Constitution doesn't define what a natural-born citizen is . . . as if it had to.
These are the same know-nothings who foolishly clamor for the Court to define natural-born citizenship . . . as if the matter were beyond the ken or mere mortals.
There is no mystery about it and never has been. What? The Framers intentionally instituted an esoteric riddle as a prank? There has only been the confusion of ignorance in the minds of those who don't know the law, though it be as simple as this: one is either a citizen at birth by the soil and/or by the blood of the nation (natural-born) or is a citizen subsequent to birth (naturalized).
In this country, there never was any significant confusion over what a natural-born citizen was . . . until
Wong Kim Ark muddied the waters. It is only because so many do not know the history of citizenship and nationality, or grasp the various constructs thereof that there is any confusion over what a natural-born citizen is today. The only thing historically new to or different from the original intent of the NBCC is birthright citizenship.
The rest is the political agenda of demagogues.
One doesn't need a law degree to understand the matter. One just needs a brain that works.
_____________________________
*Pertinent Links:
"The Straight Dope on U.S. Territories".
U.S. Department of State Foreign Affairs Manual Volume 7 Consular Affairs - "7 FAM 1130, Acquisition of U.S. Citizenship by Birth Abroad to U.S. Citizen Parent": See "7 FAM 1131.6-3, Not Citizens by 'Naturalization' " and "7 FAM 1131.9, Birth in Panama; Special Provisions".
Because he was born in the Panama Canal Zone under the terms of the Naturalization Act of 1795 (albeit, under the aegis of the Revised Statutes Act of 1934, Section 1993)
after the Court in the pertinent
Insular Cases (1901 - 1905) made territories like the Zone unorganized-unincorporated and
before the passage of the Panama Canal Zone Citizenship Act of 1937 (currently codified, 8 U.S.C., Section 1403.a) that fixed the discrepancy ultimately due to the idiocy of
Wong Kim Ark: McCain was at best, due to a technically
ne plus ultra (
in the extreme), a Panamanian citizen and at worst an undeclared citizen of the world . . . as far as Congress was concerned. It was the Court, not Congress, that
de jure rendered the Zone a statutory no-man's land and
de facto imputed U.S. nationality . . . in regard to a leased, not formally owned, piece of real estate! In other words, as a result of the Court's redefinition of the Zone's jurisdictional status in case law, persons born in the Zone according to prevailing statute were neither citizens nor nationals of the United States.
So who was right? The Court or Congress?
Constitutionally, statutorily, factually and logically—Congress was right! For the Zone, being a leased territory, initially resided only within the United States' martial-judicial jurisdiction, just like Guantomino Bay, Cuba; therefore, it was not and rationally could not be a national or federal outlying possession of allegiance, let alone be a part of the United States proper under the jurisdiction of the Fourteenth Amendment. Incidentally, Congress later responded by formally placing the Zone and Guantomino Bay outside the national and federal jurisdiction of allegiance, effectively,
again in 1937 in defiance of case law . . . and rightly so!
In any event, even if one grants the validity of the Court unilaterally and by default conferring nationality on persons born in the Zone, like McCain, between the years of 1904 and 1937, a U.S. national is not a U.S. citizen, let alone a natural-born citizen of the United States.
As I said before, the territorial repercussions of
Wong Kim Ark and the Court's not so perfect fixes in the
Insular Cases wreaked havoc on the United States' uniform code of naturalization.
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Main Link: Righting the Confusion of Citizenship and Nationality: The Facts, The Myths and Other Riddles.
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