I read that to be president you must be born in the US or if born abroad, to 2 US citizens....?
...What about Military brats? For example, your father is a US soldier, meets a foreign girl, and they have you in her home country. Your mother is not a citizen, but your father is. Your father has custody of you and you are raised in the US. Are you eligible for the presidency? OR If your mother gets custody and is an illegal immigrant to the US, are you eligible, since you have lived in the US most of your life and your father is a US citizen (even though your mother is not)?
dutchie2010-08-18T05:57:36Z
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It often comes down to Admiralty law, the law of the wide open spaces.
For example, if a 747 (Assembled in Reston WA, from wings made in Germany, tail in Spain, engines in the UK ) run by Trump Air ( based in the Seychelles, incorporated in Bermuda ) takes off from Toronto with a load of French tourists bound for Cuba, has one engine fall off over Lake Erie, catches on fire over the Polish embassy, and ditches into the intercoastal waterway, then slides into downtown French Lick, Alabama, where do they bury the survivors?
No seriously, the rules for persidential candidates are very complicated. The Constitution was mighty fuzzy about what a "natural born" citizen is. Various decrees since then have added clauses and caveats galore, such that you have to be a left-handed vegetarian Emo that has lived in the USA for at least one month for every year outside the US except when you lost it in the Virgin Islands under the age of fourteen.
There seems to be no doubt that Obama was born in Hawaii, so he's a natural born citizen.
It's even more interesting in McCain's case as he was born on a naval base outside the US but the law passed to make him a citizen, oops, conflicts with another ruling that says the laws at the time of your birth take precedence. So as far as I can tell McCain isn't a "natural born" citizen!
"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."
American Citizen Born Abroad = natural born citizen.
information on if a child is eligible to be considered an American Citizen Born Abroad: http://travel.state.gov/law/info/info_609.html
Good question. But, if she has the baby on a military hospital, or a US Embassay, that is considered US soil. That would make the baby a US citizen and consitutionally eligible for future presidency.