Looking At McCain’s Citizenship
By Alan Stewart Carl | Related entries in 2008 Election, McCainI don’t believe for a minute that a court will disqualify John McCain from becoming president because he was born in the Panama Canal Zone. However, a a detailed look at citizenship laws by a University of Arizona law professor reveals that due to the timing and exact wording of various citizenship laws, McCain may not technically be a natural born citizen.
If you’re interested in the convolutions of law and the intellectual gymnastics of interpretation, read the article. It’s fascinating.
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July 11th, 2008 at 11:31 am
It’s fascinating–and it’s wrong.
Chin’s claim that having been born when and where he was there are only two ways for McCain to be a “natural born” citizen is gravely mistaken, and ignores several centuries worth of common law on this very subject, running back to the time of Edward III and confirmed by the First Congress in the very first Immigration Act passed under the new Constitution.
“And the children of citizens of the United States that may be born beyond the sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens: Provided, That the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States”. –First Congress, Act of March 26th, 1790, 1 Stat. 103.
Had McCain been born to U.S. citizens NOT on military or diplomatic assignment living in the Canal Zone, maybe Chin might have a point. But that is not the case, and that he was born there because of his father’s assignment there by the government as an agent of the government automatically makes him a “natural born” citizen under original intent, original meaning, and common law running back to the 1300′s.
July 11th, 2008 at 11:47 am
Thank, Tully. I was searching for a concise opinion contrary to the one linked to in the post.
December 9th, 2008 at 7:18 am
Regarding the article on Obama and McCain’s residency issues, I have three comments:
1) McCain was born on US soil (the Panama Canal Zone was then a U.S. posession), same as if he had been born in the U.S. Marshall Islands, the U.S. Virgin Islands, or Washington, DC. His citizenship is a moot subject.
2) Even if Hawaii prohibits public disclosure of Obama’s birth certificate, there is nothing that prohibits OBAMMA from disclosing it and providing a hard copy document to the court which has demanded it. The same would be true for his medical records, and his financial records, which he has relinquished. Only in the case of birth/natural citizenship issue, it is a US Constitutional requirement that needs to be met/proven. I understand he has spent about a half-million dollars to stonewall this specific issue.
3) My question is: Why didn’t this matter get taken care of much, much, much earlier? It is a requirement in the Constitution that we all learn about in grade school. Was a “fox guarding the chicken coup?”