Qualifications for President and the “Natural Born” Citizenship Eligibility Requirement
A similar distinction between “naturalized” citizens who are not eligible to the Presidency, and those who are “native” citizens (that is, those who are citizens by birth in the country) who are eligible was made in the earlier Supreme Court case of Luria v. United States:
Citizenship is membership in a political society, and implies a duty of allegiance on the part of the member and a duty of protection on the part of society. These are reciprocal obligations, one being a compensation for the other. Under our Constitution, a naturalized citizen stands on an equal footing with the native citizen in all respects save that of eligibility to the Presidency.[1]
The Supreme Court in 1929, in United States v. Schwimmer, had stated in a similar manner that “Except for eligibility to the Presidency, naturalized citizens stand on the same footing as do native born citizens,”[2] and noted again in 1931 that, “The alien, when he becomes a naturalized citizen, acquires, with one exception, every right possessed under the Constitution by those citizens who are native born.”[3]
Although a small faction of advocates now apparently attempt to cast doubt as to whether every native born U.S. citizen is a “natural born” citizen under the Constitution, all doubt in the judicial arena has been resolved for more than a century in favor of “natural born” status of such individuals who are citizens “by birth” or “at birth” (as having been born in and under the jurisdiction of the United States). As discussed in more detail in the following section of this report, there have been some legitimate legal arguments and varying opinions about the status of foreign born children of U.S. citizens as being either “natural born” citizens under common law principles, or citizens who are “naturalized” by statute. There appears, however, to be no legitimate legal issue outstanding concerning the eligibility of all native born citizens of the United States to be President. The case law in the United States, as well as the clear historical record, does not support the argument or contention that there is some further or additional “subcategory” of “citizen” of the United States who, although native born and subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, is neither a “natural born” citizen nor a “naturalized” citizen.[4] Rather, as the cases discussed above demonstrate, the categories uniformly recognized and referred to in case law in the United States as “citizens” of the United States are “natural born” citizens (including all “native born” citizens), that is, those who are citizens “at birth,” as opposed to “naturalized” citizens, that is, those who are aliens at birth and must go through naturalization to become citizens.
- ↑ 231 U.S. 9, 22 (1913). This case cites further to Osborn v. United States Bank, 9 Wheat. (22 U.S.) 737, 827 (1824), in which Chief Justice Marshall noted the distinctions between a “naturalized citizen” and a “native citizen,” noting that the “naturalized citizen… becomes a member of the society, possessing all the rights of a native citizen…. He is distinguishable in nothing from a native citizen, except so far as the constitution makes the distinction….”
- ↑ United States v. Schwimmer, 279 U.S. 644, 649 (1929).
- ↑ United States v. MacIntosh, 283 U.S. 605, 623–624 (1931).
- ↑ As to the possibility of the rather unique argument that native born U.S. citizens, born within the United States to non-citizen parents, could be somehow considered “naturalized” citizens, the Supreme Court cases noted immediately above, clearly repudiate that notion by distinguishing native born citizens from naturalized citizens. As explained by the Supreme Court in Miller v. Albright, 523 U.S. 420, 423–424 (1998), every person “born in the United States, subject to the jurisdiction thereof, becomes at once a citizen of the United States, and needs no naturalization.”
