Marco Rubio: Not a "Natural Born Citizen"?

[YankeeFan]

Birthers have now determined that Jindal & Rubio are ineligible to be President:

Meanwhile, Marco Rubio was born in Miami, Fla., on May 28, 1971, to Mario and Oriales Rubio who were born in Cuba, though the senator has not released his birth certificate for the world to scrutinize.

...

It's a similar situation for Rubio, as his press secretary Alex Burgos said the senator's parents "were permanent legal residents of the U.S." at the time Marco was born in 1971.

Then four years after Marco was born, "Mario and Oriales Rubio became naturalized U.S. citizens on Nov. 5, 1975," Burgos told WND.

http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=297485#ixzz1N8aoc8jx

Commentary:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2723577/posts

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2723550/posts

 

[secretariat]

Meh.

 

[suburbia]

If Rubio and Jindal had a claim to U.S. Citizenship at birth (born on U.S. soil, born to at least one parent who is a U.S. citizen, etc.), then they should be natural-born citizens.

It's just as silly to be arguing these points about those two as it was to question Obama's natural-born citizenship.

 

[Smallpotatoes]

Just birthers moving the goalposts and trying to make it look like this wasn't about their inability to accept that Obama won the last election.

 

[Herbert Anchovy]

Does anyone really believe Marco Rubio is presidential timber?

 

[Stitch]

People actually get paid to come up with this crap. That's the biggest outrage in all of this. If anyone thinks Rubio and Jindal aren't eligible to be President, they should just wear a sign that they are idiots so normal people can avoid them.

 

[Armchair_QB]

People actually get paid to come up with this crap. That's the biggest outrage in all of this. If anyone thinks Rubio and Jindal aren't eligible to be President, they should just wear a sign that they are idiots so normal people can avoid them.

No, the biggest outrage is that I'm not getting paid to come up with this. You know whoever did is getting top dollar.

 

[franticscribe]

The nuts making this argument seem to be conveniently ignoring the 14th Amendment's citizenship clause and the way the court has interpreted that for the last, I don't know, 115 years.

If you're born on American soil you're a U.S. Citizen. A court would have to bend over itself backwards to adopt this "native born" vs. "natural born" distinction that birthers are pushing and decide that after 235 years we actually have three clashes of citizenship (natural, native and naturalized) as opposed to the two we've known (natural and naturalized).

 

[Starman]

 

[Stitch]

The birther garbage is still around because it's inconvenient to have real policy debates in this country. Thinking is too hard.

 

[LongTimeListener]

Just birthers moving the goalposts and trying to make it look like this wasn't about their inability to accept that Obama won the last election.

Also a signal to all dark-skinned presidential hopefuls, regardless of party, that they're going to need to carry papers.

 

[crimsonace]

The nuts making this argument seem to be conveniently ignoring the 14th Amendment's citizenship clause and the way the court has interpreted that for the last, I don't know, 115 years.

If you're born on American soil you're a U.S. Citizen. A court would have to bend over itself backwards to adopt this "native born" vs. "natural born" distinction that birthers are pushing and decide that after 235 years we actually have three clashes of citizenship (natural, native and naturalized) as opposed to the two we've known (natural and naturalized).

There is gray area in the 14th Amendment, because of those words "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof." However, you are correct in that the courts have interpreted it to mean anyone born in the U.S. is a U.S. citizen.

Essentially, it's this. Would you have been eligible to receive a U.S. pashport at birth? If so, you're "natural-born." If not, you're not. By the current ruling of the courts, Jindal and Rubio are both presidential eligibles.

However, what they're beginning to get at is this -- children of immigrants shouldn't automatically receive citizenship, even if the immigrants are here legally. If one wants to take that argument, *legal* immigrants/aliens (as the parents of both Jindal and Rubio obviously were) are subject to the jurisdiction of the United States even if they don't have citizenship. If you have asylum or a green card, you're here. One can make the argument that *illegal* immigrants are breaking the law by being here and therefore not subject to such jurisdiction and their children are not entitled to citizenship, but that is currently not the view of the courts.

Whatever the case, anyone trying to spike a Rubio/Jindal presidency on these grounds is an idiot (then again, so is anyone trying to spike an Obama presidency on the same claims. or someone trying to spike McCain's presidential bid because he was born in the Panama Canal zone). However, there is a large number of Americans -- many of whom unfortunately occupy my clashroom and have to get a little bit of an education from me -- who think that all immigrants are illegal. I have to casually point out that my 4-year-old son (who was born in China and adopted at 15 months) is an immigrant, and he is definitely not illegal (I've actually been asked if he'll have to take the citizenship test when he gets old enough).

With Jindal, I don't see it as a problem. After all, he pretty much killed his own presidential chances with his hideously-staged response a few years ago.