It's not a Democrat/Republican issue. It is a Constitutional issue...

Now popular Republicans 'not natural-born citizens'

Rising stars of GOP in doubt because parents from overseas

By Joe Kovacs

MIAMI, Fla. – Are U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal natural-born citizens of the United States, and thus eligible for the presidency?

It's a simple question, but the answer may not be so easy.

While the Constitution does not define "natural-born citizen," there is strong evidence that the Founding Fathers understood it to mean someone born of two American citizens.

The next national election is less than 18 months away, and both rising Republican stars have been touted as potential contenders for either the No. 1 or No. 2 spot on a presidential ticket.

But their eligibility is in doubt since both men's parents were not U.S. citizens at the time their future political children were born, WND can reveal. That factor is important because the Constitution mandates a presidential candidate to be a "natural-born citizen," a requirement that has dogged President Barack Obama since the 2008 campaign.

With 2011 being the apparent year of the birth certificate, Jindal this month released a copy of his own birth record, indicating he was born on American soil – specifically, Baton Rouge, La. – to parents who were born in India...

Based on that disclosure, the New Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper declared him to be qualified for the White House, stating, "Piyush Jindal was born at Woman's Hospital in Baton Rouge, a natural-born U.S. citizen, who like every other child born in America, could, constitutionally, grow up to be president."

Kyle Plotkin, Jindal's press secretary, echoed that proclamation, telling WND, "The governor is obviously a natural-born citizen."

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.

Last November, radio giant Rush Limbaugh commented about Rubio's eligibility while making a point about general media non-interest in Obama's eligibility.

"Liberal birthers may demand Marco Rubio's birth certificate," said Limbaugh. "If he did [run on a presidential ticket], he'll produce it, I'm sure, but I'm not worried about it. If Obama's taught us anything, it's that the news media doesn't care where our presidents are born. They don't. Well, let's see if it does. Let's see if all of a sudden the media starts caring where Republicans are born. Up to now they haven't cared where presidents are born. Let's see if they now start caring."

Regarding Bobby Jindal's parents, they were not U.S. citizens when their son was born.

"They were both permanent legal residents at the time of his birth," Plotkin told WND. "They became citizens after his birth."

Plotkin says Jindal's mother became a U.S. citizen Sept. 21, 1976, and his father was naturalized 10 years later on Dec. 4, 1986.

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.

When asked specifically if Sen. Rubio considered himself to be a natural-born citizen, Burgos responded, "Yes."

The fact that Rubio and Jindal were both born in America undoubtedly makes them "native-born" citizens, but does it mean they're "natural-born" citizens?

Some would say no – including legal sources relied upon by America's Founders – based on the foreign births of their parents, an issue many claim disqualifies Obama from holding the presidency, since Obama's father held British citizenship due to his birth in Kenya, which was under British rule at the time.

The Founders' chief concern, as demonstrated in a 1787 letter from John Jay to George Washington, was that the commander-in-chief not have dual loyalties.

Jay, who later became president of the Continental Congress and the first Supreme Court chief justice, wrote: "Permit me to hint, whether it would be wise and seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government; and to declare expressly that the Commander in Chief of the American army shall not be given to nor devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen."

The definition of natural-born citizen approved by the first U.S. Congress can be seen in the Naturalization Act of 1790, which regarded it as a child born of two American parents. The law, specifying that a natural-born citizen need not be born on U.S. soil, stated: "The children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond 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."

The first U.S. Congress included 20 delegates to the Constitutional Convention. Among the 20 were eight members of the Committee of Eleven that drafted the Constitution's natural-born citizen clause.

While the act was repealed five years later, it, nevertheless, represented the will of the Congress that the U.S. not be led by someone with dual loyalties.

Rep. John Bingham of Ohio, a principal framer of the Fourteenth Amendment, affirmed in a discussion in the House on March 9, 1866, that a natural-born citizen is "born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty."

"The Law of Nations," a 1758 work by Swiss legal philosopher Emmerich de Vattel, was read by many of the American Founders and informed their understanding of law later established in the Constitution.

Vattel specified that a natural-born citizen is born of two citizens and made it clear that the father's citizenship was a loyalty issue.

Vattel writes: "The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights. … In order to be of the country, it is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; for, if he is born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country."

Significantly, when the U.S. Senate resolved in 2008 that Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the Republican presidential nominee, was a natural born citizen, it specified that his parents were American citizens.

The non-binding resolution, co-sponsored by then-Sen. Barack Obama, stated that McCain – born to two American citizens on an American military base in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936, "is a 'natural born citizen' under Article II, Section 1, of the Constitution of the United States."

"'Natural-born citizen' status requires not only birth on U.S. soil but also birth to parents who are both U.S. citizens," said New Jersey-based attorney Mario Apuzzo, one of several lawyers filing lawsuits over Obama's eligibility and who also says Rubio and Jindal are definitely not natural-born citizens. "The reason they use that is because of allegiance. The founding fathers wanted undivided allegiance."

Herb Titus, an attorney who has taught constitutional law for nearly 30 years and was the founding dean of the College of Law and Government at Regent University in Virginia Beach, Va., agrees with that definition completely.

"That's precisely what a natural-born citizen is," Titus said in a YouTube video, "one who is born to a father and a mother, each of whom is a citizen of the United States or whatever other country they're claiming natural-born citizenship in."

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