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Chester A. Arthur (1829–1886), 21st president of the United States, was rumored to have been born in Canada. This was never demonstrated by his Democratic opponents, although Arthur Hinman, the attorney in charge of the investigation, raised the objection during his vice-presidential campaign and after the end of his Presidency. Arthur was born in Vermont to a U.S. citizen mother and a father from Ireland, who was eventually naturalized as a U.S. citizen. Despite the fact that his parents took up residence in the United States somewhere between 1822 or 1824, Chester Arthur additionally began to claim between 1870 and 1880 that he had been born in 1830, rather than in 1829, which only caused minor confusion and was even used in several publications. Arthur was sworn in as president when President Garfield died after being shot. Since his Irish father William was naturalized 14 years after Chester Arthur's birth, his citizenship status at birth is unclear, because he was born before the 1868 ratification of the 14th Amendment, which provided that any person born on United States territory and being subject to the jurisdiction thereof was considered a born U.S. citizen, and because he was a British subject at birth by patrilineal jus sanguinis. Arthur's natural born citizenship status is therefore equally unclear.

Charles Evans Hughes (1862–1948) was questioned in an article written by Breckinridge Long, and published in the Chicago Legal News during the U.S. presidential election of 1916, in which Hughes was narrowly defeated by Woodrow Wilson. Long claimed that Hughes was ineligible because his father had not yet naturalized at the time of his birth and was still a British citizen. Observing that Hughes, although born in the United States, was also a British subject and therefore "enjoy[ed] a dual nationality and owe[d] a double allegiance", Long argued that a native born citizen was not natural born without a unity of U.S. citizenship and allegiance and stated: "Now if, by any possible construction, a person at the instant of birth, and for any period of time thereafter, owes, or may owe, allegiance to any sovereign but the United States, he is not a 'natural born' citizen of the United States." However there is no indication that Long's article was taken seriously or had any impact on the election.

George Romney (1907–1995), who ran for the Republican party nomination in 1968, was born in Mexico to U.S. parents. Romney’s grandfather had emigrated to Mexico in 1886 with his three wives and children after Utah outlawed polygamy. Romney's monogamous parents retained their U.S. citizenship and returned to the United States with him in 1912. Romney never received Mexican citizenship, because the country's nationality laws had been restricted to jus-sanguinis statutes due to prevailing politics aimed against American settlers.

Barry Goldwater (1909–1998) was born in Phoenix, in what was then the incorporated Arizona Territory of the United States. During his presidential campaign in 1964, there was a minor controversy over Goldwater's having been born in Arizona when it was not yet a state.

Lowell Weicker (born 1931), the former Connecticut Senator, Representative, and Governor, entered the race for the Republican party nomination of 1980 but dropped out before voting in the primaries began. He was born in Paris, France to parents who were U.S. citizens. His father was an executive for E. R. Squibb & Sons and his mother was the Indian-born daughter of a British general.

John McCain (born 1936), who ran for the Republican party nomination in 2000 and was the Republican nominee in 2008, was born of two U.S. citizen parents at the Colón Hospital in Colón, Republic of Panama. The city of Colón was outside the US-administered Panama Canal Zone and remained Panamanian territory throughout the existence of the Canal Zone. The former unincorporated territory of the Panama Canal Zone and its related military facilities were not regarded as United States territory at the time, but 8 U.S.C. § 1403, which became law in 1937, retroactively conferred citizenship on individuals born within the Canal Zone on or after February 26, 1904, and on individuals born in the Republic of Panama on or after that date who had at least one U.S. citizen parent employed by the U.S. government or the Panama Railway Company; 8 U.S.C. § 1403 was cited in Judge Alsup's 2008 ruling, described below. A paper by former Solicitor General Ted Olson and Harvard Law Professor Laurence H. Tribe published in March 2008 opined that McCain was eligible for the Presidency. In April 2008 the U.S. Senate approved a non-binding resolution recognizing McCain's status as a natural born citizen. In September 2008 U.S. District Judge William Alsup stated obiter in his ruling that it is "highly probable" that McCain is a natural born citizen from birth by virtue of 8 U.S.C. § 1401, although he acknowledged the alternative possibility that McCain became a natural born citizen retroactively, by way of 8 U.S.C. § 1403. These views have been criticized by Gabriel J. Chin, Professor of Law at the University of Arizona, who argues that McCain was at birth a citizen of Panama and was only retroactively declared a born citizen under 8 U.S.C. § 1403, because at the time of his birth and with regard to the Canal Zone the Supreme Court's Insular Cases overruled the Naturalization Act of 1795, which would otherwise have declared McCain a U.S. citizen immediately at birth. The US Foreign Affairs Manual states that children born in the Panama Canal Zone at certain times became U.S. nationals without citizenship.[56] It also states in general that "it has never been determined definitively by a court whether a person who acquired U.S. citizenship by birth abroad to U.S. citizens is a natural born citizen […]". In Rogers v. Bellei the Supreme Court only ruled that "children born abroad of Americans are not citizens within the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment", and didn't elaborate on the natural born status.

Barack Obama (born 1961), 44th president of the United States, was born in Honolulu, Hawaii to a U.S. citizen mother and a British subject father from what was then the Kenya Colony of the United Kingdom (which became the independent country of Kenya in 1963). Before and after the 2008 presidential election, arguments were made that he is not a natural born citizen. On June 12, 2008, the Obama presidential campaign launched a website to counter what it described as smears by his opponents, including these challenges to his eligibility. The most prominent issue raised against Obama was the claim made in several lawsuits that he was not actually born in Hawaii. In two other lawsuits, the plaintiffs argued that it was irrelevant whether he was born in Hawaii, but argued instead that he was nevertheless not a natural born citizen because his citizenship status at birth was governed by the British Nationality Act of 1948. The relevant courts have either denied all applications or declined to render a judgment due to lack of jurisdiction. Some of the cases have been dismissed because of the plaintiff's lack of standing. On July 28, 2009, Hawaii Health Director Dr. Chiyome Fukino issued a statement saying, "I ... have seen the original vital records maintained on file by the Hawaii State Department of Health verifying Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawaii and is a natural-born American citizen,". On July 27, 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 593, commemorating the 50th anniversary of Hawaii's statehood, including the text, "Whereas the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961." The vote passed 378-0.

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Róger Calero (born 1969) was born in Nicaragua and ran as the Socialist Worker's Party presidential candidate in 2004 and 2008. In 2008, Calero appeared on the ballot in Delaware, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York and Vermont.

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The Court stated that:

The constitution nowhere defines the meaning of these words [citizen and natural born citizen], either by way of inclusion or of exclusion, except in so far as this is done by the affirmative declaration that 'all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.'

It thus clearly appears that by the law of England for the last three centuries, beginning before the settlement of this country, and continuing to the present day, aliens, while residing in the dominions possessed by the crown of England, were within the allegiance, the obedience, the faith or loyalty, the protection, the power, and the jurisdiction of the English sovereign; and therefore every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject, unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign state, or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born. III. The same rule was in force in all the English colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the constitution as originally established.

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Isn't it also, if one was borned on a USA ship, whether merchant or military, the child was an American?

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ORIGINAL: jlf1961

There are a number of cases that define citizenship, although the term natural born has not been defined by any court, except in the case stated, where the supreme court cited English Common Law as the basis for citizenship.

Under that definition, it appears that even if one parent is a US Citizen and you are born within the borders of the United States, you are a natural born citizen.

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and therefore every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject....

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ORIGINAL: jlf1961

................Under that definition, it appears that even if one parent is a US Citizen and you are born within the borders of the United States, you are a natural born citizen.

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ORIGINAL: hlen5

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ORIGINAL: jlf1961

................Under that definition, it appears that even if one parent is a US Citizen and you are born within the borders of the United States, you are a natural born citizen.

This is my understanding of natural born citizen. I served in the military 1980-84, and during orientation briefiings was told that the birth didn't need to be within the confines of the US as long as the other criteria were met.

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I wondered, you have such a low opinion of it.

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Wong Kim Ark was also cited in Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982), a Supreme Court decision which struck down a Texas state law that had sought to deny public education to undocumented alien children (i.e., children born abroad who had come to the United States illegally along with their parents — not children born in the U.S. to illegal alien parents). The court's majority opinion in Plyler said that, according to the Wong court, the 14th Amendment's phrases "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" and "within its jurisdiction" were essentially equivalent and that both referred primarily to physical presence. It held that illegal immigrants residing in a state are "within the jurisdiction" of that state, and added in a footnote that "no plausible distinction with respect to Fourteenth Amendment 'jurisdiction' can be drawn between resident aliens whose entry into the United States was lawful, and resident aliens whose entry was unlawful."[6]

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ORIGINAL: willbeurdaddy

It means that you were born in one of the 50 states, a US territory, a US Embassy or military base, and that you werent a victim of partial birth abortion.

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ORIGINAL: jlf1961

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ORIGINAL: willbeurdaddy

It means that you were born in one of the 50 states, a US territory, a US Embassy or military base, and that you werent a victim of partial birth abortion.

Actually that is not quite true:

All persons born in the United States, except those not subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S. government (such as children of ambassadors or other foreign diplomats) are citizens under the Fourteenth Amendment. Additionally, under sections 301–309 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (restated in sections 1401–1409 of Title 8 of the United States Code), current U.S. law defines numerous other categories of individuals born abroad, as well as people born in most U.S. territories and possessions, as being "nationals and citizens of the United States at birth". The phrase "natural born citizen," however, does not appear in the current statutes dealing with citizenship at birth.

Thus while a person may have been born in a US Territory, that does not make them a natural born citizen. This was the primary focus of the protest of the Barry Goldwater run for president. He was born in Phoenix while Arizona was still a territory.

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ORIGINAL: willbeurdaddy

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ORIGINAL: jlf1961

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ORIGINAL: willbeurdaddy

It means that you were born in one of the 50 states, a US territory, a US Embassy or military base, and that you werent a victim of partial birth abortion.

Actually that is not quite true:

All persons born in the United States, except those not subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S. government (such as children of ambassadors or other foreign diplomats) are citizens under the Fourteenth Amendment. Additionally, under sections 301–309 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (restated in sections 1401–1409 of Title 8 of the United States Code), current U.S. law defines numerous other categories of individuals born abroad, as well as people born in most U.S. territories and possessions, as being "nationals and citizens of the United States at birth". The phrase "natural born citizen," however, does not appear in the current statutes dealing with citizenship at birth.

Thus while a person may have been born in a US Territory, that does not make them a natural born citizen. This was the primary focus of the protest of the Barry Goldwater run for president. He was born in Phoenix while Arizona was still a territory.

You must be kidding, or just woke up.