The “natural born Citizen” issue remains unresolved, but the threat of an ineligible president has been avoided through the election of Donald Trump on November 5, 2024, rejecting Kamala Harris’s potential presidency. This situation will only hold true if the current president does not resign or face an unexpected accident before January 20, 2025, as VP Harris would assume the presidency temporarily until then.
For years, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) has faced criticism for misusing U. S. Supreme Court decisions. One example is found in the cases involving Perkins v. Elg, where the CRS altered the Supreme Court’s language through ellipses to create a false narrative that supported the idea of eligibility for the presidency despite foreign parentage. This manipulation involved portraying certain individuals as having foreign fathers while suggesting they could be eligible for the presidency, influencing public perception.
The CRS memo from 2009 and the report from 2011 reset the narrative that a person could be born to an alien father yet qualify for the presidency, thereby potentially validating former President Barack Obama’s claims of eligibility regardless of doubts surrounding his Hawaiian birth certificate. In reality, the law of nations posited by Emer de Vattel indicates that a natural born citizen is someone born in the country to parents who are both citizens of that country, a principle seemingly ignored in the CRS documentation.
In 2016, however, the CRS issued a revised report that removed previous ellipses, implying a return to the original Supreme Court language. This revision aimed to obscure earlier misrepresentations and restore credibility to the definition of a natural born citizen. Multiple entries into CRS databases yield no results for accessing this revised report, suggesting potential deliberate efforts to make it difficult for the public to discover these changes.
Despite proclamations that the 2016 report is available, directed internet searches typically lead back to older versions of the report. Some claim this coversup potential inquiries into the implications of restoring the original ruling regarding the citizenship of individuals like Obama. Nevertheless, this report continues to assert that citizenship status is irrelevant to presidential eligibility, a notion contested by those who argue that parental citizenship should be a defining factor.
The 2016 report also neglects to consider Vattel’s influence on the Founders, reasoning that the document was not available in English at the time. Advocates counter this argument, affirming many Framers were fluent in French and could access Vattel's writings. Likewise, the CRS misinterprets the Supreme Court's decision in Minor v. Happersett, mischaracterizing the relationship between citizenship status and eligibility.
The report suggests that natural born citizens can simply be identified as those who are citizens at birth, regardless of the citizenship of their parents. This presents a problematic narrative, contested by historical interpretations that link eligibility directly to parental citizenship. Furthermore, the claim that the Supreme Court's commentary in Minor is merely dicta, or non-binding, is disputed based on judicial precedents.
The current circumstances highlight a significant disconnect between public understanding and legal standards regarding citizenship and eligibility for presidency. There is an expressed need for the Supreme Court to provide clarity on this matter, either through a decisive ruling or by clarification from justices addressing citizenship matters.
In light of these complexities, public indifference toward legal interpretations of citizenship rights may inhibit necessary changes in understanding eligibility. The prevailing belief may suggest that those in power prefer to uphold the current construct allowing for ambiguity in national identity and citizenship status. The discourse surrounding whom the Founders intended to be eligible as natural born citizens continues to hold vital importance, reflecting broader questions regarding American identity and governance.
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