McCain was born in the US administered Panama Canal Zone in 1936 to American parents. Technically, under the law in force on the day he was born, he was entitled to be granted US citizenship if born “out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States”. The problem in legal terms is that the Canal Zone was outside the US, but not outside its jurisdiction, so the law does not describe him. It's a technical point, absolutely. What is interesting is that when the law in the US conflicts with what the people running the place want, they ignore it. Bush's illegal and unconstitutional wiretaps, arrests and detentions are just a few recent examples.
In McCain's case, whatever the law may say, the US Senate passed a non-binding resolution in April saying it was OK for him to be President.
We can see clearly here how people deal with inconvenient Constitutional problems: they agree to ignore them.
“No court will get close to it, and everyone else is on board, so there’s a constitutional consensus, the merits of arguments such as this one aside,” said Peter J. Spiro, an authority on the law of citizenship at Temple University.Just so....on this issue and many others besides.
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