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Al-Awlaki's Can of Worms
American Thinker
Cindy Simpson
3/21/2012
Thanks to Sam Sewell at The Steady Drip (http://www.thesteadydrip.blogspot.com) for the reference to the article.
Excerpt:
"Anwar al-Awlaki may be dead, but the controversy surrounding his demise is far from over. Many Americans and members of Congress are still alarmed that a U.S. citizen was ordered assassinated without due process of law. And an important point that the Obama administration could make in its defense is contained in a can of worms that the president would probably rather not open.
It is the same can that was noted to exist by the Bush administration and two Supreme Court justices back in 2004 in the case of Hamdi v Rumsfeld, although the court's final decision did not open it either.
The worms in the can: the assertion that al-Awlaki, just like Yaser Esam Hamdi, might not have been a U.S. citizen in the first place.
"Why is Hamdi being treated as a citizen at all?" asked constitutional law expert Dr. John Eastman in his 2004 editorial, "Wrong Question in Hamdi."
The same question was posed regarding al-Awlaki by former congressman Tom Tancredo, one of the signers of an amicus brief submitted in Hamdi: was al-Awlaki ever really an American citizen?
The Hamdi briefs prepared by the Center for American Unity (CAU) and the Eagle Forum argued that the "birthright citizenship" practice -- the grant of citizenship to every baby born on U.S. soil, even to non-citizen parents here temporarily or illegally -- is not supported by a correct interpretation of the 14th Amendment or application of existing judicial precedent.
Hamdi and al-Awlaki were born in the U.S to temporarily resident non-citizen parents. It is interesting to consider whether either Hamdi or al-Awlaki, if born elsewhere, would have been eligible to naturalize as U.S. citizens. Current immigration law places even "ideological restrictions" on naturalization. And while the process of naturalization requires renouncement of former foreign citizenship, birthright citizen babies born with the additional citizenship of their parents are allowed to retain dual citizenship for life.
Both Hamdi and al-Awlaki were birthright and dual citizens.
Dual citizenship, a sort of privileged "supra citizen" status, essentially enables a person to alternate between nationalities depending on the circumstances -- a status some experts characterize as "civic bigamy." The State Department notes that "dual nationals owe allegiance to both the United States and the foreign country" and recognizes the security clearance implications. By their actions, both Hamdi and al-Awlaki obviously exhibited an allegiance that was not to America -- that is, until they were officially classified as "enemy combatants," and it became advantageous for them to claim U.S. citizenship with its habeas corpus rights.
Imagine how difficult it would be to hold a competition in which a team player could switch sides, whenever he chose. Or suppose that either team captain could assert the right to forcibly draft players. Then imagine if the conflict was not a game, but real war."
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View the complete article at:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/..._of_worms.html
American Thinker
Cindy Simpson
3/21/2012
Thanks to Sam Sewell at The Steady Drip (http://www.thesteadydrip.blogspot.com) for the reference to the article.
Excerpt:
"Anwar al-Awlaki may be dead, but the controversy surrounding his demise is far from over. Many Americans and members of Congress are still alarmed that a U.S. citizen was ordered assassinated without due process of law. And an important point that the Obama administration could make in its defense is contained in a can of worms that the president would probably rather not open.
It is the same can that was noted to exist by the Bush administration and two Supreme Court justices back in 2004 in the case of Hamdi v Rumsfeld, although the court's final decision did not open it either.
The worms in the can: the assertion that al-Awlaki, just like Yaser Esam Hamdi, might not have been a U.S. citizen in the first place.
"Why is Hamdi being treated as a citizen at all?" asked constitutional law expert Dr. John Eastman in his 2004 editorial, "Wrong Question in Hamdi."
The same question was posed regarding al-Awlaki by former congressman Tom Tancredo, one of the signers of an amicus brief submitted in Hamdi: was al-Awlaki ever really an American citizen?
The Hamdi briefs prepared by the Center for American Unity (CAU) and the Eagle Forum argued that the "birthright citizenship" practice -- the grant of citizenship to every baby born on U.S. soil, even to non-citizen parents here temporarily or illegally -- is not supported by a correct interpretation of the 14th Amendment or application of existing judicial precedent.
Hamdi and al-Awlaki were born in the U.S to temporarily resident non-citizen parents. It is interesting to consider whether either Hamdi or al-Awlaki, if born elsewhere, would have been eligible to naturalize as U.S. citizens. Current immigration law places even "ideological restrictions" on naturalization. And while the process of naturalization requires renouncement of former foreign citizenship, birthright citizen babies born with the additional citizenship of their parents are allowed to retain dual citizenship for life.
Both Hamdi and al-Awlaki were birthright and dual citizens.
Dual citizenship, a sort of privileged "supra citizen" status, essentially enables a person to alternate between nationalities depending on the circumstances -- a status some experts characterize as "civic bigamy." The State Department notes that "dual nationals owe allegiance to both the United States and the foreign country" and recognizes the security clearance implications. By their actions, both Hamdi and al-Awlaki obviously exhibited an allegiance that was not to America -- that is, until they were officially classified as "enemy combatants," and it became advantageous for them to claim U.S. citizenship with its habeas corpus rights.
Imagine how difficult it would be to hold a competition in which a team player could switch sides, whenever he chose. Or suppose that either team captain could assert the right to forcibly draft players. Then imagine if the conflict was not a game, but real war."
...........................................
View the complete article at:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/..._of_worms.html
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