Marco Rubio Just Blew His 2016 Chances

ALTHOUGH HE IS NOT A “NATURAL BORN CITIZEN”

by Don Fredrick, ©2013, blogging at The Obama Timeline

(Apr. 15, 2013) — On April 14 Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) made the rounds of the Sunday talks show in an attempt to persuade Americans that the Senate’s proposed illegal immigrant amnesty legislation is not really amnesty. In doing so, he may have thrown away his chance at becoming the Republican Party’s 2016 nominee for president or vice president.

On ABC’s This Week, Rubio said, “All we’ve done here is create an alternative [U.S. citizenship process] to that that they can access [sic], and the alternative we’ve created is going to be longer, more expensive and more difficult to navigate [than the process for legal immigrants]. It will actually be cheaper if they went back home, waited 10 years, and applied for a green card. And so, secondly, we’ve not awarding anything. All we’re giving people the opportunity to eventually do is gain access to the same legal immigration system, the same legal immigration process that will be available to everybody else.”

Rubio apparently believes that amnesty is not amnesty if it happens to require some effort on the part of the illegal immigrant. I can assure Rubio that many Americans—this author included—do not believe that making an illegal immigrant jump through a few bureaucratic hoops makes him any less an illegal immigrant. He broke the law when he illegally crossed the border or by overstaying his visa, and even if he can be made to jump through more hoops than a circus dog he is still a lawbreaker who should not be rewarded with citizenship. Whether the gift of citizenship is given one day after the “gang of ocho’s” bill passes or 10 years later is irrelevant. He does not deserve the gift. (Rubio could just as well tell a bank robber, “We’re not going to let you have the money you stole for another 10 years.”)

“I think it’s important to understand,” says Rubio, “it [the legislation] does not give anything. It allows people access to the legal immigration system.” Rubio is incorrect. The legislation gives illegal immigrants access to a system to which they should not be legally entitled. It therefore most certainly does “give something” to them.

“Number two, some people won’t qualify. They haven’t been here long enough; they’ve committed very serious crimes. They won’t be able to stay.’ In other words, “Only some illegal immigrants will receive amnesty.” But that “some” will be the vast majority of illegal immigrants. That a few gang-bangers, burglars, and thugs who can’t figure out how to cheat the system will not be given U.S. citizenship is irrelevant. From the perspective of most Americans, amnesty for some should be amnesty for none.

“Number three is: all people will get is an opportunity to apply for things, to apply for a legal status, which isn’t awarded on day one…” Rubio fails to recognize—or admit—that delayed amnesty is amnesty nevertheless.

“The only thing you are earning here is an opportunity to apply for temporary status, and ultimately, potentially to apply for a green card, the way everybody else does. And that’s the process that we are outlining.” Note to Rubio: The illegal immigrants are not “earning” an opportunity for anything. It is being given to them. They are being given temporary status. (Why? So that Rubio can appease The New York Times and The Washington Post until after the 2016 GOP convention—at which point the mainstream media will go after him with a vengeance and ensure Hillary Clinton’s victory?)

The Democrats, of course, believe we need to “do something” about illegal immigrants because they want to convert them to reliable registered Democrats. Rubio, and his Republican-in-Name-Only cohorts, want to “do something” because they have bought the line cagily fed to them by the mainstream media: “The GOP can never win another presidential election unless it can appeal to Hispanic voters.” Here’s another note to Rubio: The vast majority of the Hispanics who support amnesty will vote straight Democrat in every election no matter what, and the Hispanic voters who oppose amnesty will now be even less inclined to vote Republican—because you and the GOP establishment just spit in their faces.

We do not have to “do something.” There is no critical need to bring illegal immigrants “out of the shadows.” It is their illegal actions that put them in those shadows, and many have been there in the shadows for decades. There is no reason why they cannot remain out of the sunlight until the day they die. Why must they be given a “pathway to citizenship?” Why is it unacceptable to let illegal immigrants remain non-voting non-citizens? To quote a former Secretary of State, “What difference does it make?”

Those who say, “We’re not about to deport 12–20 million people” are correct. We are not about to do so. But that does not mean the only alternative to mass deportation is a “pathway to citizenship.” There is another alternative: Do nothing. Let the illegal immigrants live in the shadows; never allow them to become citizens; never give them the right to vote; but deport them swiftly if they commit any felony of any degree.

You may not agree with me, Marco Rubio, but tens of millions of Americans do. Faced with voting for a Democrat who enthusiastically supports amnesty and a Republican who falsely labels it something else, many conservatives will sit out the 2016 election. So enjoy your stay in the Senate. That’s as far as you are going to get without the conservative vote.

Note: On the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives in 1862 Congressman John Bingham, the “father of the Fourteenth Amendment,” stated, “All from other lands, who by the terms of laws and a compliance with their provisions become naturalized, are adopted citizens of the United States; all other persons born within the Republic, of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty, are natural born citizens [italics added]. Gentleman can find no exception to this statement touching natural-born citizens except what is said in the Constitution relating to Indians.” (What part of ‘of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty’ is not clear? )

In 1866 Bingham stated, “Every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty [italics added] is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen.” Bingham’s definition was never disputed by other Congressmen. (Obama supporters—including attorneys filing briefs with the U.S. Supreme Court—have omitted the words “of parents” when quoting Bingham’s statement, in a shameful and intentional effort to mislead. I dare anyone to justify intentionally omitting those words.)

In the 1885 U.S. Supreme Court case Minor v. Happersett, Chief Justice Morrison Waite wrote, “The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens [italics added] became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first.” That is, there was agreement by most legal scholars in 1885 that the term natural born citizen meant “born in the United States to two U.S.-citizen parents.” A small minority argued that the citizenship of the parents was not material. Without justification, Obama supporters eagerly accept the less common interpretation. The Supreme Court has never ruled on the meaning of the term. Obama has fought lawsuits intended to rectify that situation—because he fears the Court will rule against him and follow the words of Waite.

Additionally, Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution reads:

“No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution [italics added], 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.” Note the highlighted “grandfather clause.” That text was made necessary after the term “born citizen” was changed to read “natural born citizen.” An earlier draft of the document thus read:

“No Person except a Born Citizen 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.”

“Born Citizen” means born on U.S. soil—without regard to the citizenship of one’s parents. John Jay then wrote George Washington and asked that all presidents be required to be natural born citizens—that is, born on U.S. soil to two U.S. citizen parents. But simply making that change (“born” to “natural born”) would have been inadequate:

“No Person except a natural born Citizen 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.”

“The problem with that text is that neither George Washington nor John Adams nor anyone else was yet a 35-year-old natural born citizen. Those  potential presidents who were born on U.S. soil (such as George Washington, who was born in Virginia) obviously could not have had U.S. citizen parents at the time of their births. (Washington’s parents were citizens of Great Britain, as were the majority of the residents of the 13 colonies). In other words, it would be 35 years before anyone could serve as president! To allow for that problem, the final version read:

“No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution [emphasis added], 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.”

The “grandfather clause” is essentially a loophole that means, “We can’t go without a president for decades while we wait for natural born citizens to reach age 35, so we will temporarily allow individuals who are not natural born citizens to serve as president, as long as they were U.S. citizens in 1789 when this document was adopted.” Considering all of the above, it is clear that the U.S. Constitution prohibits Obama, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, and Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) from serving as president. Obama is the nation’s second illegal president. (The first illegal president was Chester A. Arthur, who hid from the public the fact that his father was not a U.S. citizen at Chester’s birth. Arthur even went so far as to burn his father’s documents—something that would not have been necessary if his citizenship was irrelevant.) Regardless of where Obama was born, his father was not a U.S. citizen—if one assumes his father was the drunken Kenyan communist. Obama is therefore not a natural born citizen. (Additionally, according to Kenya’s constitution, a person born of a Kenyan parent—irrespective of the place of birth—automatically becomes a citizen of Kenya.  Obama was therefore a Kenyan citizen at birth, by virtue of his father’s citizenship.) Marco Rubio was born in Florida to Cuban-citizen parents. He is a U.S. citizen but he is not a natural born citizen. Bobby Jindal was born in the United States to Indian-citizen parents. He is a U.S. citizen but he is not a natural born citizen. Ted Cruz was born in Canada to an American mother and a Cuban father.