Foreign-Born Children of Disloyal Parents: Adam Muthana, Mary Arcedeckne, and the Natural-Born

(Excerpt) Can Adam Muthana, the foreign-born child of an alien Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (“ISIS”) combatant and a New Jersey-born ISIS adherent, grow up to be president of the United States? He can if he attains the age of thirty-five, resides in the United States for fourteen years, and is a natural-born citizen. He has a facial claim to statutory derivative citizenship at birth through his mother, and some scholars argue that anyone who is a citizen at birth is a natural-born citizen. Nevertheless, there are significant disputes over whether he will be allowed to reside here, whether he is a citizen, and if so, whether he is natural-born. Much of United States citizenship law developed from English and British sources that may help frame the debate over Muthana’s status and that of his mother. In particular, the House of Lords decision in Arcedeckne et ux. v. Horan et al., et e contra (1730) may help because it determined whether the foreign-born Mary Arcedeckne was natural-born even though both of her parents were disloyal subjects. The two cases have notable similarities. The Arcedeckne case occurred in the context of domestic and international conflicts between Protestants and Catholics. English Protestants feared Catholicism and repressed it both in England and in Ireland. Actions to achieve greater religious freedom or to restore a Catholic monarch prior to the Arcedeckne decision included the failed Gunpowder Plot to destroy Parliament in 1605, war against William of Orange in 1688–91, support for a planned French invasion in 1708, and Jacobite risings in England, Scotland, and Ireland in 1715 and 1719. Protestants reacted to these actions with greater suspicion of Catholic subjects’ loyalty and additional repression. It was in this context that Mary Arcedeckne’s Irish Catholic father fought against English rule in Ireland until his exile to France, where she was born and where he continued to fight in French service against the English crown until his death in 1703.