The Post & Email 11/2/2020
Defense Attorney Claims Kamala Harris Both “Citizen†and “natural born Citizenâ€
BUT ARE THE TERMS SYNONYMOUS? An attorney representing Democratic vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris in a lawsuit filed by New York State citizen Robert Laity claimed in a recent filing that Harris is both a “citizen of the United States†and a “natural born Citizen,†as is constitutionally required for the presidency and vice-presidency.
The suit, filed in early September, plaintiff Laity claimed that Harris does not meet the constitutional requirements of the presidency and vice-presidency given that her parents were not U.S. citizens when she was born in Oakland, CA on October 20, 1964. Then both attending the University of California, Berkeley on student visas, Harris’s mother was a citizen of India and her father a citizen of Jamaica.
The term “natural born Citizen†appears once in our founding documents: Article II, Section 1, clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution, and is not defined. A reference to the term appears in a July 25, 1787 letter from future governor of New York and U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Jay to George Washington, who was chairing the constitutional convention which would replace the Articles of Confederation with the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
“Permit me to hint,†Jay wrote to Washington, “whether it would not be wise & seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government, and to declare expressly that the Command in chief of the american army shall not be given to, nor devolved on, any but a natural born Citizen.â€
Article II, Section 1, clause 5 of the Constitution states:
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; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
A modern interpretation of the founders’ intent is that anyone born in the United States is a “natural born Citizen,†as opposed to an immigrant who naturalizes to join the American community of citizens. A more historical approach is that a person’s birthplace alone does not determine his or her citizenship or whether or not he or she is “natural born†and eligible to the presidency. Germane to that argument is the citizenship of the parents at the time of the child’s birth.
More:
https://www.thepostemail.com/2020/11/02/defense-attorney-claims-kamala-harris-both-citizen-and-natural-born-citizen/
