Group also challenged right of Vivek Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley to appear on Republican primary ballots

The National Federation of Republican Assemblies (NFRA) has cited the infamous 1857 Dred Scott Supreme Court decision, which stated that enslaved people weren’t citizens, to argue that Vice President Kamala Harris is ineligible to run for president according to the Constitution.

The group also challenged the right of Vivek Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley to appear on Republican primary ballots.

The Republican group’s platform and policy document noted that “The Constitutional qualifications of Presidential eligibility” states that “No person except a natural born Citizen, shall be eligible, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President.”

The same document included former President Donald Trump’s running mate Ohio Senator JD Vance on a list of preferred candidates for vice president.

The group, which adopted the document during their last national convention held between October 13 and 15 last year, goes on to argue in the document that a natural-born citizen has to be born in the US to parents who are citizens when the child is born, pointing to the thinking of Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

    • NaibofTabr@infosec.pubEnglish
      16·
      2 years ago

      So… wait, so only Native Americans can be President?

      Maybe we should let them have this one. It would be interesting, at least.

    • FlowVoidEnglish
      6·
      2 years ago

      According to them a natural born citizen can be born to naturalized immigrant parents.

      Note that Donald Trump’s mother was born in Scotland but naturalized before Donald was born.

    • _bcrondeleted by creatorEnglish
      6·
      2 years ago

      deleted by creator

    • bitchkatEnglish
      1·
      2 years ago

      That’s not true. An immigrant can be a naturalized citizen and then bear offspring with another US citizen. The immigrant is not natural horn but their child is.

        • bitchkatEnglish
          1·
          2 years ago

          that child is a natural born citizen because they were born in the USA (birthright citizenship) to an American citizen.

          If you are born in the USA, your parent’s citizenship is irrelevant. Have you ever heard the term “anchor baby”? Also, if one of your parents is a US Citizen then you are a US Citizen no matter where you were born. (There are some refinements to this that have changed over the years regarding how much time the parent has lived in the US) That’s what made the Obama thing so stupid — it doesn’t matter if he was born overseas, he’d still be a US citizen via his mother.

        • bitchkatEnglish
          1·
          2 years ago

          This group is claiming that “a natural-born citizen has to be born in the US to parents who are citizens when the child is born” though. That means that the child in my example is not a natural born citizen by this group’s rules. If this group’s interpretation prevails, then that child, who obviously would not go on to be naturalized, was not really a citizen at all because one of their parents was not naturalized.

          If this was the law, I’m not sure why you assume that these non-citizens would not get naturalized? My family moved to the US when I was young and I became a naturalized citizen when I was in college.

          That further means, again by this group’s logic, any decedents from such a union would also not really be citizens because none of their children would go on to be naturalized before having children of their own. Any US citizen with an ancestor who was born to a non-naturalized immigrant (at the time of birth) is not actually a natural born citizen.

          I don’t know why you think no one would get naturalized in this scenario?

    • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
      1·
      2 years ago

      They would actually have to show at every point in their genealogical history, every single ancestor, going back to the founding of the country, was a citizen. If even one of their ancestors was an immigrant, then every child descended from them is not a natural born citizen.

      I don’t think that’s required by their argument at all, merely that both parents be citizens (by birth or naturalized) when the child is born (this is stricter than is normally used, but is not ridiculously impossible to demonstrate like your suggestion). Them inventing this new definition and wanting to apply it to Kamala is just plain racism though.