IMMIGRANT OF THE DAY: SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN

If John McCain becomes President, he will be the first one born in another country. Yes, you read that correctly. John McCain was born in Panama. More precisely, he was born in the Panama Canal Zone in a US Navy hospital to a US citizen mother and father (his dad was in the US Navy stationed there). According to Ted Olsen, the nation's Solicitor General, that makes McCain eligible to be President (which is the correct view, in my opinion). There is a provision in the Constitution limiting the presidency to natural born citizens and this is usually incorrectly interpreted as meaning you have to be born in the US. That's not really true. Naturalized citizens cannot become President, but anyone entitled to claim citizenship at birth should be eligible.

So McCain is not really an immigrant in the technical sense since his parents are both Americans and he was a citizen at his birth. But maybe this explains why he shows empathy with immigrants and I'm sure he wouldn't mind the honor of being named today's Immigrant of the Day.

Comments

[Greg Siskind]

Jenda - Everything you are discussing relates to passing US citizenship on to children born outside the US. But Obama is automatically a US citizen at birth by virtue of being born in Hawaii regardless of his parent's nationalities or ages.

[Jenda]

Here's a similar nutso theory from the othr side about why Obama supposedly cannot be President - turn-about is not fair play even when McCain does not offer to sponsor legislation "to fix the problem" in a act of false magnanimity:

CAN OBAMA BE PRESIDENT?
It seems that Barack Obama is not qualified to be president after all for the following reason:
Barack Obama is not legally a U.S. natural-born citizen according to the law on the books at the time of his birth, which falls between "December 24, 1952 to November 13, 1986. Presidential office requires a natural-born citizen if the child was not born to two U.S. citizen parents, which of course is what exempts John McCain though he was born in the Panama Canal. US Law very clearly stipulates: "If only one parent was a U.S. citizen at the time of your birth, that parent must have resided in the United States for at least ten years, at least five of which had to be after the age of 16." Barack Obama's father was not a U.S. citizen and Obama's mother was only 18 when Obama was born, which means though she had been a U.S. citizen for 10 years, (or citizen perhaps because of Hawai'i being a territory) the mother fails the test for being so for at least 5 years **prior to** Barack Obama's birth, but *after* age 16. It doesn't matter *after*. In essence, she was not old enough to qualify her son for automatic U.S. citizenship. At most, there were only 2 years elapsed since his mother turned 16 at the time of Barack Obama's birth when she was 18 in Hawai'i. His mother would have needed to have been 16+5= 21 years old, at the time of Barack Obama's birth for him to have been a natural-born citizen. As aformentioned, she was a young college student at the time and was not. Barack Obama was already 3 years old at that time. His mother would have to have waited to have him as the only U.S. Citizen parent. Obama instead should have been naturalized, but even then, that would still disqualify him from holding the office.
*** Naturalized citizens are ineligible to hold the office of President. *** Though Barack Obama was sent back to Hawaii at age 10, all the other info does not matter because his mother is the one who needed to have been a U.S. citzen for 10 years prior to his birth on August 4, 1961, with 5 of those years being after age 16. Further, Obama may have had to have remained in the country for some time to protect any citizenship he would have had, rather than living in Indonesia. Now you can see why Obama's aides stopped his speech about how we technically have more than 50 states, because it would have led to this discovery. This is very clear cut and a blaring violation of U.S. election law. I think the Gov. of California would be very insterested in knowing this if Obama were elected President without being a natural-born U.S. citizen, and it would set precedence. Stay tuned to your TV sets because I suspect some of this information will be leaking through over the next several days.

Pretty nuts, eh? Just very charming.

[Johnnie]

Sorry, the Canal Zone was US Territory and part of the US. Just as the Arizona Territory was part of the US vis a via Barry Goldwater. This is so typical of the radical alien lobby, trying to alienize an American.

[drew from immigrants list]

I wonder what would have happened if a President had been born in the South during the Civil War.. Ohio & New York seemed to dominate the Presidency for the early party of the 20th Century, so i guess we'll never know.

[R. Lawson]

Two of my siblings were born on foreign military bases (Germany). As I understand a military base is just like an embassy - sovereign US soil. I don't think there is an issue here. You have a guy born to American citizens on soil under the control of the US government.

If the shoe was on Obama's foot I doubt some Republicans would be making the same argument.

[A Nony Mouse]

I didn't know they had stationed idiots in the military. It seems like a pretty harsh post to be assigned. :/

The more you know...

[USC]

"If John McCain becomes President"

No disrecpect to McCain but I am still supporting Obama or Clinton.

[George Chell]

Greg:

Obviously the idiot poster did not read the post, just the heading. Mitt Romney was born not born in Mexico as many news reports claim. He was born in Detroit. But, then again, whether one is an American or not depends on perceptions and prejudices. There are folks who will claim Obama is not really an American because his father was from Kenya. There are many folks who think that people of Asian or Hispanic origin are not really Americans eventhough they may be sixth generation. Even some people in DHS think that. That is why they deported a US citizen. Would they deport an English foreigner like John Derbyshire or Peter Brimelow? I think not. This should not be even an issue. A citizen at birth is a natural born US citizen, not a naturalized US citizen.

[Greg Siskind]

Did you read the post? Of course I knew that.

What are you a dumb ass??? His father was in the military and he was born in the Panama Canal Zone because that's where his father was stationed Idiot...