Thread: Obama to end 'wet foot, dry foot' policy for Cubans

Originally Posted by Judy

I think this is the year that Marco Rubio needs to realize that he's an American, not Cuban. This is why there's a natural born citizen clause in the US Constitution in order to be President. Born in the USA to 2 US citizens.

According to the following information, that interpretation of the U.S. Constitution is not correct.

http://uspolitics.about.com/od/presi...On-US-Soil.htm

More on Rubio's natural born citizen status:

https://bearingarms.com/michael-zak/...hester-arthur/

Do Presidents Have to Be Born On U.S. Soil?

Constitutional Requirements for Service as President

Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz is worth more than $1 million, according to personal financial disclosures. Alex Wong/Getty Images News

By Tom Murse
Updated December 22, 2016.

Conventional wisdom holds that candidates for president must be born on U.S. soil to serve in the highest office in the land. That belief, however, appears to be a misinterpretation of Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution, which states in part:

"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."

Most Americans believe the term "natural born Citizen" applies only to someone born on American soil. A native-born citizen, in other words.

But that's not likely the case.

The Constitution's use of the term is somewhat nebulous - the document does not actually define it - and most modern legal interpretations have concluded that you can be a natural born citizen without actually being born in one of the 50 United States.

The U.S. Supreme Court, however, has not weighed in specifically on this issue.

You Probably Don't Have to Be Born in the U.S.A.

You don't have to be born in the United States to be eligible to serve as president of the United States as long as one of more of your parents were American citizens at the time of birth, it is commonly held.

The Congressional Research Service concluded in 2011:

"The weight of legal and historical authority indicates that the term 'natural born' citizen would mean a person who is entitled to U.S. citizenship 'by birth' or 'at birth,' either by being born 'in' the United States and under its jurisdiction, even those born to alien parents; by being born abroad to U.S. citizen-parents; or by being born in other situations meeting legal requirements for U.S. citizenship 'at birth.'"

The predominant legal scholarship holds that the term natural born citizen applies, quite simply, to anyone who is a U.S. citizen at birth, or by birth, and does not have to go through the naturalization process. The child of parents who are U.S. citizens, regardless of whether he or she is born abroad, fits into the category under most modern interpretations.

Continued the Congressional Research Service:

"Such interpretation, as evidenced by over a century of American case law, would include as natural born citizens those born in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction regardless of the citizenship status of one’s parents, or those born abroad of one or more parents who are U.S. citizens (as recognized by statute),11 as opposed to a person who is not a citizen by birth and is thus an “alien” required to go through the legal process of naturalization to become a U.S. citizen."

Modern Examples

The issue of whether a candidate was eligible to serve as president because he was born outside the United States arose during the 2008 presidential campaign. Republican U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the party's presidential nominee, was the subject of lawsuits challenging his eligibility because he was born in the Panama Canal Zone, in 1936.

A federal district court in California determined that McCain would qualify as a citizen “at birth,” and thus was a “natural born” citizen because he was "born out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States” to parents who were U.S. citizens at the time.

Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, a Tea Party favorite who is widely seen as a potential presidential candidate in the 2016 election, was born in Calgary, Canada. Because his mother was a citizen of the United States, Cruz has maintained he also is a natural born citizen of the United States.

In the 1968 presidential campaign, Republican George Romney faced similar questions. He was born in Mexico to parents who were U.S. citizens. "I am a natural born citizen. My parents were American citizens. I was a citizen at birth," Romney said in a written statement in his archives.

Legal scholars and researchers sided with Romney at the time, too.

Related

• Ted Cruz Was Born in Canada. Can He Still Run for President?
• Does Ted Cruz Qualify as a Natural Born Citizen?
• What Does It Mean To Be A Natural Born Citizen?
• Everything You Need to Know About Presidential Candidate Ted Cruz

http://uspolitics.about.com/od/presi...On-US-Soil.htm

You two are entitled to your liberal opinions of our Constitution.

Originally Posted by Judy

You two are entitled to your liberal opinions of our Constitution.

It isn't my opinion.
Someone else wrote it.
I just posted it for people to read.
And make up their own minds.
I have no desire to tell people what they should believe.

Marco Rubio is a natural born citizen, just like John Fremont and Chester Arthur

Posted at 4:45 am on April 26, 2012 by Michael Zak

According to the Constitution, to be eligible for the presidency (or vice presidency), a person must be a “natural born citizen” of the United States. The purpose of this restriction is to prevent a foreigner from becoming the nation’s chief executive.

How can people become U.S. citizens? There are just two ways; either they are born citizens or they become citizens later in life. In the first case, anyone who is a citizen by nature of his birth is a “natural born citizen.” In the second case, anyone who is a citizen of another country at birth, but is granted U.S. citizenship sometime afterward, is a naturalized citizen.

For example, John McCain, though born in Panama, is eligible for the presidency, because he became a citizen at birth. Similarly, had Gen. George Meade sought the presidency, he would have been eligible because, though born in Spain, he was a U.S. citizen by nature of his birth. Any non-naturalized U.S. citizen over the age of thirty-five with fourteen years of residence can be President of the United States.

Sadly, this common-sense, logical approach does not dissuade some conservative pundits from inventing a new constitutional requirement for the presidency.

Despite the plain meaning of the text, they claim that, to be eligible, a person’s parents must also be U.S. citizens. A few even assert that one’s parents must also be natural born citizens. I’ll spare you a recitation of their nonsense about “native born” or Emerich de Vattel or whatnot. Finding things in the Constitution that are not there is for Democrats!

Now that Mitt Romney has become the presumptive Republican nominee, there is speculation that the junior senator from Florida will be his running mate.

Marco Rubio’s parents were from Cuba and did not become U.S. citizens until he was four years old.

Voices from the fringe are claiming that this means Rubio is not eligible – and they’re wrong.

Marco Rubio was born is Miami, Florida. He is, therefore, a natural born citizen of the United States. Per the Constitution, the citizenship status of his parents (or grandparents or anyone but himself) is irrelevant.

Let’s look at U.S. political history for more proof. Were there other instances of a presidential or vice presidential nominee with a foreign-born parent? You betcha!

The first presidential nominee of the Republican Party, in 1856, was John Charles Fremont. He was born in Georgia to an American mother and a French father. Jean Charles Fremon was born a French citizen, near Lyon, France. He was not a U.S. citizen at the time of his son’s birth and never did become a citizen. Abraham Lincoln campaigned for Fremont. All the founders of the Republican Party campaigned for Fremont. One would be hard-pressed to find any suggestion at the time that Fremont’s birth made him ineligible for the presidency.



The seventh vice presidential nominee of the Republican Party, Chester Arthur, was born in Vermont to an American mother and a foreign-born father. William Arthur was born a British citizen – in County Antrim, Ireland – who did not become a U.S. citizen until his son was fourteen years old.
John Fremont, George Meade, Chester Arthur, John McCain, Marco Rubio – all eligible for the presidency.

Republicans should not allow themselves to be distracted away from contesting the 2012 presidential campaign on the real issues.

https://bearingarms.com/michael-zak/...hester-arthur/

Marco Rubio is only a citizen of the United States because of the 14th Amendment which did not exist at the time of the original Constitution and the clause referring to natural born citizen. Obviously someone born in the US alone was not and to this day is not a natural born citizen under the US Constitution's eligibility clause for President and Vice President of the United States.

Ted Cruz is only a citizen of the United States because of US Naturalization Law. He was by birth a citizen of Canada.

Cuba finally got what it wanted.

Cuba has been demanding an end to the wet foot dry foot policy for many years.

Havana hails end to special US immigration policy for Cubans

Hopefully the ones trying to make their way here from South America through Mexico will be sent directly back to Cuba including the Haitian's and all others trying to make their way to the US.

Send some barges...load them up and ship them back.

JANUARY 13, 2017 7:38 PM

Some Cuban felons, including 2,000 murderers, could face deportation under new policy



Dave Brede of the U.S. Coast Guard tosses Cuban rafters life jackets as they pull along side of the makeshift raft Sept. 5, 1994, in the Florida Straits. New U.S. policy ends so-called ‘wet-foot, dry-foot’ admission. David Collier Reuters

BY JAY WEAVER AND MIMI WHITEFIELD
jweaver@miamiherald.com

The sudden end of America’s “wet-foot, dry-foot” policy and special immigration privileges for Cubans may open the door for another move that would have a major impact on thousands of South Florida families: deporting convicted Cuban felons back to the island.

The U.S. counts 28,400 of them, all living free after serving prison time.

After decades of maintaining a hardline to never take them back, Cuban officials said Thursday they would consider the proposition — which has been one of the topics in negotiations between the U.S. and Cuba since diplomatic relations were restored in 2015. It appears unlikely there would be a mass deportation by the U.S., but both sides signaled a diplomatic opening for case-by-case negotiations.

Gustavo Machin, deputy director of the U.S. section of Cuba's Foreign Ministry, said his government would consider cases of Cubans who have “broken laws” in the United States and “can no longer remain” in the country.

The issue is controversial, to say the least, because among those Cuban felons who have completed prison terms and now face removal to their homeland are more than 2,000 murderers.

For decades, they have been allowed to live in Florida and other parts of the United States under the supervision of immigration authorities because the federal government had no diplomatic relations with Cuba since the early 1960s. Of the total facing deportations, about 18,000 live in Florida.

But now that President Barack Obama has repealed the so-called wet-foot, dry-foot policy allowing Cubans who reach U.S. soil to stay, the possibility of removing thousands of Cuban felons in this country seems at least possible. Although there is no specific mention of the felon issue in the historic agreement, one section addresses Cuban immigrants who “remain” in America “in violation of U.S. law.” It further says the U.S. government “shall focus on individuals ... determined to be priorities for return.”

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told reporters on Thursday that “under our agreement with Cuba, there was also the possibility that the Cubans will accept back migrants outside of this arrangement, but on a case-by-case basis.”

Some South Florida legal experts who have been following the issue said the removal of the Cuban felons is long overdue.

“Convicted felons of Cuban origin should be deported if they cannot establish a lawful reason for the United States to refrain from sending them back,” said Miami lawyer Marcos Jimenez, a former U.S. attorney in South Florida.

“And Cuba should accept them back, so Cuba honors its end of the bargain now that the countries have reestablished diplomatic relations.”

Jimenez, who was appointed as U.S. attorney by former President George W. Bush, said the removals “should absolutely be a priority for the new [Trump] administration.”

But at the same time, Jimenez said, the Cuban government “should deport” potentially dozens of U.S. fugitives wanted for crimes in this country “who are hiding in Cuba.”

Over the past two decades, there has been an uptick in federal crimes, such as Medicare and other government fraud, with Cuban suspects fleeing to the island with their stolen benefits — a troubling trend that compelled a few Cuban-American politicians to question the special political refugee status afforded new immigrants from the island.

For decades, Cubans — including those convicted in the United States — have benefited from unique immigration privileges while their country and America shared no diplomatic relations.

Generally speaking, the Obama administration has aggressively enforced U.S. law requiring the deportation of other foreign nationals with criminal convictions: More than one million felons have been sent back to their countries since 2009, mostly for immigration and drug-trafficking offenses, records show. But similar actions have rarely been pursued against Cubans in decades, largely owing to Havana's refusal to take them back.

Unlike other immigrant groups, Cubans were automatically given a special status as political refugees under U.S. law in the years after Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution. Under the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act, any Cuban who enters the country can apply for a green card, or permanent legal residency, after one year and a day.

They can also apply for U.S. citizenship after five years, if they haven't committed a crime.

As a result, without a new immigration agreement in place with the Cuban government, the vast majority of Cuban felons who served their prison terms were released back into society. That's because they could not be detained indefinitely under two Supreme Court decisions in 2001 and 2005 that prohibit the permanent detention of immigrants who cannot be deported. So, in the meantime, they fall under the supervision of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

There has been only one exception to the no-deportation rule, in the aftermath of the 1980 Mariel boat-lift. The Cuban government had sent several thousand criminals and patients from mental institutions to Florida as part of an exodus of 125,000 Cuban refugees.

Afterward, under a 1984 repatriation agreement, U.S. and Cuba officials agreed to a list of some 2,750 Cuban citizens who could be deported to the island. Of those, more than 2,020 have been sent back, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Another 250 have died and 475 are too old and sick to be returned.

But based on that agreement, Homeland Security officials said they have had little control over which cases the Cuban government would accept — including felons facing U.S. deportation orders. Indeed, the Havana government has accepted the return of only five Cubans not included on the Mariel list.

In addition, there are 6,700 Cubans facing deportations for non-criminal violations of U.S. immigration laws, including those who never applied for permanent residency after living in the country for more than a year.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/loca...126519244.html