Re: SF Politics and Super Tuesday

On Thu, 07 Feb 2008 19:09:42 +0100, Peter Bruells <usernet@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
wrote:

>Kurt Busiek <kurt@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> writes:

>> Your argument seems to depend on the idea that it was possible for it
>> to be discovered that baby Kal wasn't born on US soil.  

>Yes.

>> While that's true, it's not germane -- what matters to the law is
>> whether it was _discovered_ that he wasn't. And by "discovered," I
>> don't think they mean discovered by anyone but never re****ted, but
>> officially discovered and noted by the state -- otherwise,
>> presumably, the law wouldn't work at all, because a child born
>> outside the US but found within the US has someone who knew he was
>> born outside the US -- the people or person there at the birth,
>> and/or those who brought the child in.  

>Sure.  But by that logic smuggling children into the US would make
>them legal Americans. 

If you don't get caught at it, yes.  If you do get caught at it but
only twenty years later, yes.


>I very much doubt that this is the intention of the law.

Intent is not definitive in legal matters, but yes, that seems to
be the intent of the law.  Two basic principles of American law
are, people trying to exercise their civil rights get the benefit
of any doubt in the matter, and nobody has to worry about ancient
legal history blowing up in their faces.

There are exceptions, but none seem relevant here.  If the actual
origin of a child present on American soil has been successfully
concealed, the law will presume him to be rightfully an American
citizen until proven otherwise.  And it will not accept proof
more than twenty or so years after the fact.


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