South Africa's One Million Invisible Children Without Birth Certificates

This is completely incorrect and is not what the issue was with his citizenship. John McCain was born in 1936 in the Panama Canal Zone, the area around the Panama Canal that was controlled by the US. The Naturalization Act of 1855 granted birthright citizenship to foreign born children of a US citizen father [1], and was reaffirmed in 1878 [2]. The Equal Nationality Act of 1934 added that a US citizen mother could also confer citizenship to children born abroad [3].

Most interpretations considered The Canal Zone to be foreign territory for citizenship purposes. The issue was in the extremely specific wording of the Acts, which was that children of US parents born “out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States” were granted citizenship. The Canal Zone was outside the limits of the US, but was technically under the jurisdiction of the US. So, depending on how you interpret the Act, children born in The Canal Zone are in a weird no man’s land, where they don’t get citizenship as a result of being born in the US, but also technically aren’t on totally foreign territory, which would give them their parent’s citizenship. In 1937 (a year after McCain’s birth, not three years), Congress passed 50 Stat. 558, explicitly making children born in The Canal Zone to a US citizen parent US citizens [4]. There was no citizenship law 3 years after McCain’s birth, but the Nationality Act of 1940 was four years after, however, its significant change was allowing children born out of wedlock to a US citizen mother to be given citizenship [5].

[1] “persons heretofore born, or hereafter to be born, out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States, whose fathers were or shall be at the time of their birth citizens of the United States, shall be deemed and considered and are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States: Provided, however, that the rights of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers never resided in the United States.” extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-10/pdf/STATUTE-1...

[2] “All children heretofore or hereafter born out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States, whose fathers were or may be at the time of their birth citizens thereof, are declared to be citizens of the United States; but the rights of citizenship shall not descend to children whose fathers never resided in the United States.” Original Statutes of 1878

[3] “Any child hereafter born out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States, whose father or mother or both at the time of the birth of such a child is a citizen of the United States, is declared to be a citizen of the United States; but the rights of citizenship shall not descend unless the citizen father or citizen mother, as the case may be, has resided in the United States previous to the birth of such child.” 8 FAM 301.5 SECTION 1993, revised statutes of 1878 extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-48/pdf/STATUTE-4...

[4] “any person born in the Canal Zone on or after February 26, 1904, and whether before or after the effective date of this Act, whose father or mother or both at the time of the birth of such person was or is a citizen of the United States, is declared to be a citizen of the United States.” extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-50/pdf/STATUTE-5...

[5] “The provisions of section 201, subsections (c), (d), (e), and (g), and section 204, subsections (a) and (b), hereof apply, as of the date of birth, to a child born out of wedlock, provided the paternity is established during minority, by legitimation, or adjudication of a competent court.” 8 U.S.C. 605; 54 Stat. 1139 https://fam.state.gov/fam/08fam/08fam030106.html

Having been born to a Canadian father in the US and moved to Canada when I was nine, my US citizenship lapsed when I turned 25 in Canada (I was quite happy to stay in Canada during the Vietnam war during my twenties). At the time I was unaware of the INA provisions repealed in 1978 that lapsed my US citizenship.

New FATCA and IRS obligations motivated me to research my US citizenship status and I was happy to discover that it had lapsed.

US Customs officers sometimes ask questions when I show up with a Canadian passport with a US birthplace. Now I pull out my copy of State Department FAM 1200 APPENDIX C to explain my status, but the legalese is a challenge for people with just high school. .

What is also hilarious is ad hominem trying to call me a communist (which I am not), and shouldn't matter either way. But what is funny is how you decry the state of things currently, which is happening under capitalism, yet the extent of your criticism of the society can't reach to the system within which it exists. However you create a nebulous hypothetical in trying to plaster me with an insult that another system would be so much worse, when according to you the state of how things is bad as it is.

So where is your critique of capitalism?

The government is privatising electricity generation and increasing private sector access to the rail network.

The business friendly Democratic Alliance party is in coalition with the ANC, rather than the far left of the EFF which is currently not in government.

You can believe South Africa will end up being communist. But the evidence falls against the statement that South Africa is heading to communism.

Privatisation is not communism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_South_Africa

Because of this many companies are reducing staff or pulling out. https://businesstech.co.za/news/energy/837719/important-busi...

....and that's before we get into things like Transnet and SA Air. I'd love to see the country succeed, but putting your head in the sand and denying that there is a problem will not fix things.

- You make the claim that "official numbers on connection to water, electricity etc. are pretty much a joke" yet provide nothing to back that up? Why? I would say giving access to water and electricity to over 90% of the population in under 30 years is a win. And a case against the term "steady decline". No doubt drought ravaged regions like the North West, which if you'd been to, is understandable that consistent water cannot be provided. So does they fall into the 10% of non-connected water residents? I would assume so.

- You state that 10-15% of households are off-grid. I would make a claim that that show's progress in society and not decline. Despite the reasons, it means that there will actually end up in the long run being more electricity for the population overall. Let's also look at overall manufacturing and I will provide sources: PWC you may have heard of them forecast 5.7% growth in manufacturing over the next decade (despite short term decline of -0.4%) due to reforms in regulation and fixing of electricity supply. Here's the link: https://www.pwc.co.za/en/publications/manufacturing-analysis...

- Healthcare is impressive if you take in the fact of providing healthcare free of charge to 60 million people within less than 25 years, is not only a feat but something that is literally the definition of impressive. It's far far off where it should be, no one doubts that but you seem to have a blinkered view that everything must be of a first world standard within the shortest timeframe. We could have gotten closer if it weren't for years of corruption but the aim and the goal and ability to provide healthcare to the people is still impressive.

- If you don't think violent crime has anything to do with Apartheid's spatial planning, has nothing to do with the Apartheid government arming and supplying gangs with drugs, has nothing to do with purposefully underfunding education within townships, ensuring little public transport to working hubs, and the entire multi-faceted list of socio-economic destruction that took place. Then, my friend, you literally do not know what you are talking about, nor the socio-economic reasons for crime to occur. If you think Apartheid has nothing to do with the unemployment rate due to generational injustices, maybe you should take grade 10 history again.

- What makes me think there is less corruption now? Well yes the fact that more comes to light, the fact that we even had the Zondo commission and have the recommendations taken on board in part by parliament and the implementation of the Public Procurement Act of 2024 will have a positive long-standing affect.

- Let's talk foreign investment. I'll just paste links because foreign investment is up over 80% since 2013. "Down something like 29%" without providing any links, or facts is nebulous at best. Mostly due to the fact of the vast increase post-covid caused a huge spike in FDI which if you look at without that context you'd think it is down, which is statistically a misnomer due to the societal causes of a sudden huge increase in investment when economies opened up.

Here is Lloyds banks analysis: https://www.lloydsbanktrade.com/en/market-potential/south-af...

The IDC backs SA as Africa's top investment destination: https://www.idc.co.za/sa-is-africas-top-investment-destinati...

FDI has increased in Southern Africa over the past year: https://unctad.org/news/africa-foreign-investment-hit-record...

So yeah I fucking hate the ANC. I hate the corruption. But I can see the bigger picture of the 30 year positive change, you can take a microscopic view as you have done - but this conversation is around "steady decline" and you have proven nothing to indicate that it is.

I completely agree. The world of developmental economics has had so many great "One tool to fix everything!" ideas, but at the end of the day, they generally don't add up to much without a functioning government that's focused on serving its citizens.

I didn't say that explicitly, but you are right that I'm implying that it is customary to use "native people" to refer to the original occupants of a territory, not subsequent waves of humans.

For context:

a) Khoisan (20,000 - 30,000 years)

b) Bantu-speaking groups (1,500 - 2,000 years)

c) white South Africans (300 - 400 years)

I guess you could say that there is a "degree" of nativeness, where a > b > c, but I would question the motives for doing so.

> No one considers the Roman empire not native to Europe

That's drawing arbitrary lines to suit your argument. Nobody would claim that the Romans were native to Gaul, for example.

I'm trying to understand what is the reason behind your points, but am struggling to do so. The less generous interpretation of your angel is that you're trying to say that white South Africans or Indian South Africans or Chinese South Africans are less native than black South Africans or that black South Africans are more native than the Khoisan. I don't know that you are saying this, but your argument does seem to point in that direction and is divisive, FWIW.