An open letter to the members of the
Congress of the
We are writing you to ensure
that the child of parents who are American citizens that is born overseas while
one or both parents are members of the military can be considered as natural
born citizens.
We accept that Congress has
no authority to alter the definition of a natural born citizen, but the way to
insure that the children born to our men and women serving in our armed forces
overseas are natural born citizens is simple. It does not require neither
changes to our Constitution, our federal common law nor to the definitions used
the United States Supreme Court, it only takes political will to work within
the authority granted to you by our Constitution.
After a year long search of
pouring over historical documents we are confident that we know both the
problem and the solution.
We know that Article II,
Section 1, clause 5 today restricts the office of the Presidency to only
natural born citizens.
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.
We know the intent of our
Founding Fathers in drafting Article II, Section 1 was to remove the
possibility of foreign influences taking control of our armed forces through
the office of Commander in Chief. Both John Jay and Alexander Hamilton have
eloquently and forcefully laid out their intent.
“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.” John Jay
“Nothing was more to
be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal,
intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican
government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from
more than one querter, but chiefly from the desire in
foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they
better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief
magistracy of the
We know that our federal
common law started with Vattel and the Law of Nations
as can be seen by our early Supreme Court Rulings.
"When the
Since our federal common law starts with
Vattel’s Law of Nations it is natural that we look there first to see if
the meaning of a natural born citizen can be found that would satisfy the
concerns of our Founding Fathers.
Lo and behold, we find in Book One, Chapter Nineteen
the following,
§ 212. Of the citizens and natives.
“The citizens
are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties,
and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. 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. The
society is supposed to desire this, in consequence of what it owes to its own
preservation; and it is presumed, as matter of course, that each citizen, on
entering into society, reserves to his children the right of becoming members
of it. The country of the fathers is therefore that of the children; and these
become true citizens merely by their tacit consent. We shall soon see whether,
on their coming to the years of discretion, they may renounce their right, and
what they owe to the society in which they were born. I say, that, 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.”
We can also see that our Department of Citizenship and Immigration Services states
that there are two principles of born citizenship,
“A citizen of the
This definition from § 212 of the Law of Nations, that
the defining characteristics of the birth of a natural born citizen removes the possibility of the transference of foreign citizenship from both
jus soli, the location of birth and jus sanguinis, the heritage of birth. It is
simple and complete, and it guarantees that the intent of the framers of the
Constitution is preserved.
Since we accept Vattel as
being the source of our federal common law we are free to visit the following
that is also found in Book One, Chapter Nineteen,
§ 217. Children born in the armies of the state.
For the same reasons also,
children born out of the country, in the armies of the state, or in the house
of its minister at a foreign court, are reputed born in the country; for a
citizen who is absent with his family, on the service of the state, but still
dependent on it, and subject to its jurisdiction, cannot be considered as
having quitted its territory.
What is important to note here is that Vattel is stating that our men and women in the armed
forces are in the service of our country who may find themselves under orders
to be abroad, and as such have in principle never left the country because they
are under the jurisdiction of the
We accept that countries can establish there owns laws
of citizenship, but that laws made by men cannot take away the birthright that
nature has bestowed upon a child. It is in this conflicting forces of the laws
of men and of the law of nature that a child may be born as a dual citizen, and
have allegiances foreign to the child’s parents yoked upon the child at birth,
§ 215. Children of citizens
born in a foreign country.
It is asked whether the
children born of citizens in a foreign country are citizens? The laws have
decided this question in several countries, and their regulations must be followed.(59)
By the law of nature alone, children follow the condition of their fathers, and
enter into all their rights (§ 212); the place of birth produces no change in
this particular, and cannot, of itself, furnish any reason for taking from a
child what nature has given him; I say "of itself," for, civil or
political laws may, for particular reasons, ordain otherwise. But I suppose
that the father has not entirely quitted his country in order to settle
elsewhere. If he has fixed his abode in a foreign country, he is become a
member of another society, at least as a perpetual inhabitant; and his children
will be members of it also.
The problem our service men and women face is that
some do equate serving them abroad with their families as emigrating from the
Unites States of
§ 224. Emigrants.
Those who quit their country
for any lawful reason, with a design to settle elsewhere, and take their
families and property with them, are called emigrants.
§ 225. Sources of their right
Their right to emigrate may
arise from several sources.
1. In the cases we have just
mentioned (§ 223), it is a natural right, which is certainly reserved to each
individual in the very compact itself by which civil society was formed.
2. The liberty of emigration may,
in certain cases, be secured to the citizens by a fundamental law of the state.
The citizens of Neufchatel and Valangin in
3. It may be voluntarily
granted them by the sovereign.
4. This right may be derived
from some treaty made with a foreign power, by which a sovereign has promised
to leave full liberty to those of his subjects, who, for a certain reason
— on account of religion, for instance — desire to transplant
themselves into me territories of that power. There are such treaties between
the German princes, particularly for cases in which religion is concerned. In
Switzerland likewise, a citizen of Bern who wishes to emigrate to Fribourg, and
there profess the religion of the place, and, reciprocally, a citizen of
Fribourg who, for a similar reason, is desirous of removing to Bern, has a
right to quit his native country, and carry off with him all his property.
While § 217 Children born in the armies of the state,
clearly states that they have not emigrated, the solution is found in clause 4
of § 225, treaties made. Our own Constitution in Article VI, Clause 2 says that
treaties become a part of the supreme law of the land.
This
Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in
Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the
Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the
Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or
Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
Utilizing a treaty in such a way is the proper
mechanism as under the Law of Nations as both countries are free to enter into
a treaty. Utilizing the promise of the removal of our armed forces is proper in
order to insure the passage of the treaty, as treaties are the instrument in
which nations utilize to insure that harmonious relations are maintained
between nations. A nation that has a grievance another nation approaches that
nation and states the grievance, and if they are civilized nations, they enter
into negotiations to resolve the grievance.
The treaty that would result of any negotiations contains the mechanisms
that resolve the grievance.
The grievance we have is that other nations are yoking
the children of our military families who are born overseas with foreign
citizenship that produce foreign allegiances which in the language of our
Founding Fathers prevents them from being considered natural born
citizens.
We, the people of the United States of America hereby
submit to you, the members of both the House of Representatives and the Senate
to draft and pass legislation that will require that all new treaties made with
countries in which the members of our armed forces will be stationed in to deny
the children born on their soil of parents who are both American citizens jus
soli citizenship upon the birth of their child. That this legislation will also
direct the President of the United States of America to instruct the Secretary
of State to renegotiate all treaties made in the past with foreign nations
where we now have men and women stationed overseas to include said prohibition
of transferring jus soli citizenship at birth to the children born of American
parents that are stationed in their territories. The Secretary of State shall
also insure those nations that these treaties will only affect the children of
two American citizen parents, and not the children born to one of their nationals,
even if the other parent is an American citizen serving their country, for it
is not right that America interfere with the transfer of citizenship between
one nation and those considered nationals of that nation. To instruct the
Secretary of State to convey to said nations that refuse to renegotiate said
treaty to inform the government of that nation that the United States of
America will remove its troops stationed in that nation within one year of
formally receiving this request to correct the grievance the United States has
in the way the children born to our citizens who are serving their country
forced into expected allegiance to that nation.
We implore you to pass a law that protects against
children being born in enemy territory by mandating that no female, service
member or civilian accompanying a service member will be allowed to enter any
territories, where hostilities either have commenced or are the commencement of
hostilities is imminent, if she is with child. That this law also mandates
priority evacuation from territories, where hostilities either have commenced
or are the commencement of hostilities is imminent, if she is with child.
The result of these treaties will be that the children
born to parents of citizens who are in the service of the United States, who
are under the jurisdiction of the United States of America, who under federal
common law are considered as never leaving the United States, will be born free
of foreign claims of allegiance upon their person, and will be considered under
our federal common law and the law of nature as natural born citizens if they
so present themselves to be examined by a federal court in the United States
and thus eligible to run for the office of President of the United States in
full compliance of Article II, Section 1, clause 5.
We further implore you not to allow the current debate
over the status of Barack Hussein Obama, II’s
natural born citizenship claim to color your obligation to the brave men and
women and their citizen spouses who are serving our great nation abroad so that
their valued service is not punished.
Respectfully submitted this seventh day of the month
of January, in the year 2010,
Tèo Bear `,:-)
on behalf of theBirthers.org