The United States District Court

For Western District of Oklahoma

)
Steven Lee Craig
)
1309 Hisel Rd . )
)
Del City , Oklahoma 73115 )
)
Plaintiff
) Case No. Civ-09-0343-F
Vs. )
)
The United States of America )
)
C/o U.S. Attorney ) 10th Circuit 09-6082
Washington, D.C. )
)
Defendant )
)

SECOND AMENDED COMPLAINT

PRELIMINARY STATEMENT

NOW COMES, Steven Lee Craig, Claiming to be of

Constitutionally recognized form of Citizenship

known as Natural Born Citizen of the United States

of America under the definition as found expressed

in a published work of general use by the Framers

of the Constitution of the United States of America

in formulating many of the principles and specific

Articles, Sections and Clauses found therein. That

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Cont.;

publication being Emmerich de Vattel’s, “The Law

of Nations or the Principles of Natural Law Applied

to the Conduct and to the Affairs of Nations and of

Sovereigns”, and specifically;

BOOK I. OF NATIONS CONSIDERED IN

THEMSELVES. CHAP. I. OF NATIONS OR
SOVEREIGN STATES.§ 212. Citizens and
natives.
“The citizens are the members of the civil
society; bound to this society by certain
duties, and subject to its authority, they
equally participate in its advantages. The
natives, or natural-born citizens, are
those born in the country, of parents who
are citizens. As the society cannot exist
and perpetuate itself otherwise than by
the children of the citizens, those
children naturally follow the condition of
their fathers, and succeed to all their
rights. The society is supposed to desire
this, in consequence of what it owes to
its own preservation; and it is presumed,
as matter of course, that each citizen, on
entering into society, reserves to his
children the right of becoming members of
it. The country of the fathers is
therefore that of the children; and these
become true citizens merely by their tacit
consent. We shall soon see whether, on

Cont.;

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their coming to the years of discretion,
they may renounce their right, and what
they owe to the society in which they were
born. I say, that, in order to be of the
country, it is necessary that a person be
born of a father who is a citizen; for, if
he is born there of a foreigner, it will
be only the place of his birth, and not
his country.”

Claimant submits further evidence of the Framers

considerations and intent regarding the differing

forms of Citizenship found within the Constitution;

Commentaries on the Constitution of the

United States (3 vols., 1833), of Joseph
Story, Associate Justice of the United
States Supreme Court, February 3, 1812 –
September 10, 1845

Volume 3: § 1473.
“It is indispensable, too, that the
president should be a natural born citizen
of the United States; or a citizen at the
adoption of the constitution, and for
fourteen years before his election. This
permission of a naturalized citizen to
become president is an exception from the
great fundamental policy of all
governments, to exclude foreign influence
from their executive councils and duties.
It was doubtless introduced

Cont.;

(for it has now become by lapse of time

merely nominal, and will soon become
wholly extinct) out of respect to those
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distinguished revolutionary patriots, who
were born in a foreign land, and yet had
entitled themselves to high honours in
their adopted country. A positive
exclusion of them from the office would
have been unjust to their merits, and
painful to their sensibilities. But the
general propriety of the exclusion of
foreigners, in common cases, will scarcely
be doubted by any sound statesman. It cuts
off all chances for ambitious foreigners,
who might otherwise be intriguing for the
office; and interposes a barrier against
those corrupt interferences of foreign
governments in executive elections, which
have inflicted the most serious evils upon
the elective monarchies of Europe.
Germany, Poland, and even the pontificate
of Rome, are sad, but instructive examples
of the enduring mischiefs arising from
this source. A residence of fourteen years
in the United States is also made an
indispensable requisite for every
candidate; so, that the people may have a
full opportunity to know his character and
merits, and that he may have mingled in
the duties, and felt the interests, and
understood the principles, and nourished
the attachments, belonging to every
citizen in a republican government. By
"residence," in the constitution, is to be
understood, not an absolute inhabitancy

Cont.;

within the United States during the whole

period; but such an inhabitancy, as
includes a permanent domicil in the United
States. No one has supposed, that a
temporary absence abroad on public
business, and especially on an embassy to
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a foreign nation, would interrupt the
residence of a citizen, so as to
disqualify him for office. If the word
were to be construed with such strictness,
then a mere journey through any foreign
adjacent territory for health, or for
pleasure, or a commorancy there for a
single day, would amount to a
disqualification. Under such a
construction a military or civil officer,
who should have been in Canada during the
late war on public business, would have
lost his eligibility. The true sense of
residence in the constitution is fixed
domicil, or being out of the United
States, and settled abroad for the purpose
of general inhabitancy, animo manendi, and
not for a mere temporary and fugitive
purpose, in transitu.”

The entire text of the Chapter is included herein

to show that Associate Justice Joseph Story touched

upon many of the circumstances of Citizenship as

they occur in the political and natural world and

how they ought be regarded when making Uniform Laws

Cont.;

of Naturalization of which many are to be found in

the full volumes of Vattel.

Specifically Claimant points to the parenthetical

passage,
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“…for it has now become by lapse of time
merely nominal, and will soon become
wholly extinct…”

in support of Claimants assertion of the intended

definition of “natural born citizen”.

Whereas ALL first Citizens of the United States of

America were necessarily Naturalized by the

Ratification of the Constitution and therefore the

exception allowing for those of that generation to

be eligible for the Executive Office as Naturalized

Citizens noting that, in the authors words, “will

soon become wholly extinct”, thereby meaning that

as that generation of First Citizens passed it

would devolve to the Second Generation of those

Cont.;

Citizens to be the eligible Natural Born Citizens,

this conforming with Vattel’s definition noted

above and as also considered in the House of

Representatives as found in;

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The Debates in the Several State
Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal
Constitution
[Elliot's debates,Volume4]Seamen's Bill.--
For the Regulation of Seamen on Board the
Public Vessels, and in the Merchant
Service of the United States.
House of Representatives, February, 1813.

Mr. ARCHER. “The framers of our

Constitution did not intend to confine
Congress to the technical meaning of the
word naturalization, in the exercise of
that power--the more especially when the
comprehensive word rule was made use of.
The principle upon which the power was to
be exercised was left to the judicious
exercise of Congress; all that was
required was, that the rule should be
uniform throughout the states. In the
grant there is no other specification, as
to the exercise of it, than that of its
uniformity. The term naturalization was
borrowed from England. It must be
understood here in the sense and meaning

Cont.;

which was, there attached to it. Whether

it was absolute or qualified, it was still
a naturalization. But the grant of a power
in general terms necessarily implied the
right to exercise that power in all its
gradations. It Was in the political as it
was in the natural world: the genus
included the species. Besides, the power
to naturalize was an attribute to
sovereignty. It was either absolute or
qualified; and if the grant to Congress
only implied a power of unlimited
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naturalization, the power to qualify
existed in the states or in the people,
for what was not specifically granted was
reserved.

In treating of the executive power, the

Constitution defines the qualifications of
the President. It declares that he should
be a natural-born citizen, or a citizen at
the adoption of the Constitution. This
article is unquestionably no limitation of
the power of Congress upon the subject of
naturalization. It was impossible to
abridge a specific grant of power without
a specific limitation, and the article
alluded to could not be tortured, by the
most ingenious mind, to diminish, even by
implication, the authority of Congress
upon a subject to which it was totally
irrelevant.”

Cont.;

Claimant asserts that the “genus” mentioned in the

first paragraph is referring to the First

Naturalized Citizens as being the natural born

citizens and that the “species” are the thereafter

naturalized citizens who, with time and

circumstance, beget their own natural born

citizens, increasing the ‘genus’, in keeping with

the political and natural world. In the second

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paragraph Mr. Archer acknowledges that the Congress

has no mandate to ‘abridge’ the authority of

Article II Section I Clause V and thereby the

inability of the Congress to politically ‘limit’

nature in the performance of the mandate to

promulgate laws of naturalization. Neither the

Fourteenth Amendment or the Nineteenth Amendment

abridged, nullified or amended Article II Section I

Clause V, neither do their words say so nor do

their words require it. In the former case the

Cont.;

source of future natural born citizens was

increased and in the latter the source of

conferring citizenship, which had been wholly of

the father, was then split equally amongst the two

parents.

The chief author of the 14th Amendment, Sen. John

A. Bingham, wrote,

“…[E]very human being born within the

jurisdiction of the United States of
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parents not owing allegiance to any
foreign sovereignty is, in the language of
your Constitution itself, a natural born
citizen,'"

Therein is read, “Parents”, being plural and after

the Nineteenth Amendment, with each “not owing

allegiance to any foreign sovereignty”, which

implies domestic domicile and being naturalized or

otherwise, for how else could the conditions and

circumstances be examined.

Cont.;

That the source of the subject of ‘natural born

citizen’ is found in the Constitutional Articles

concerning the executive offices of the Government

does not exclude it or diminish it in the concerns

of the general population but rather elevates it to

the most fundamental concerns of our Citizenry’s

national allegiance, pride and protection of the

nations sovereignty. The first duty of the

Government and the Citizens thereof is to

‘Preserve, Protect and Defend’ the Constitution of

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the United States of America. That the Government

is ‘of the People, by the People and for the

People’ it can not be denied and must be hoped that

those People with the greatest understanding, the

greatest regard, the greatest interest, and the

greatest allegiance to the Nation are those who

Cont.;

have longest been bound and blessed by the

liberties shared as contemplated by Vattel;

“…The society is supposed to desire this,

in consequence of what it owes to its own
preservation; and it is presumed, as
matter of course, that each citizen, on
entering into society, reserves to his
children the right of becoming members of
it…”

JURISDICTION AND VENUE

1. This case involves diversity of citizenship and

this Court has jurisdiction pursuant

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to 28 U.S.C. §1343 (a)(4), and/or, § 1346 (a)(2),

and/or § 1357

2. This case further arises under the Constitution

and laws of the United States and presents a

federal question within this Court’s jurisdiction

under Article III of the Constitution and 28 U.S.C.

§ 1331.

Cont.;

3. Venue is proper in this Court under 28 U.S.C. §

1391(e)(3).

The issue of who is a “natural born citizen” under

Article 2 Section 1 Clause 5 is an issue of legal
interpretation outside the Constitutional authority
of Congress.

Only the judicial branch can interpret the laws of

this nation.

III. PARTIES

4. Plaintiff, Steven Lee Craig

1309 Hisel Rd.
Del City, OK 73115

10. Defendant, The United States of America

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Cont.;

FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS

VIOLATIONS OF THE FOURTH, EIGHTH, NINTH, TENTH AND

FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT OF THE UNITED STATES
CONSTITUION

Claimant incorporates by reference all of the

foregoing allegations as if set forth herein at

length.

Claimant alleges that the United States of America

and, specifically, the Representatives elected,

appointed or otherwise engaged in the publics

trust, have failed to Preserve, Protect and Defend

the Constitution of the United States of America

and the Amendments thereto in overt acts of lack of

defense of the definition of Natural Born Citizen

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as a specific form of Citizenship acknowledged

within the Constitution and the preservation of the

original intent of its usage in the Constitution

Cont.;

and its protection in its relation to the term of

Citizen(s), found within the same Article of the

Constitution and elsewhere, thereby violating

Claimants Ninth and Tenth Amendment Rights of equal

protection.

Marbury v. Madison 5 U.S. 1 Cranch 137 pg

174;

“It cannot be presumed that any clause in

the Constitution is intended to be without
effect, ……”

Elk Grove Unified School District et al v.

Newdow, 542 U.S. 1 (2004).
Justice O'Connor, concurring in the
opinion;

“There are no de minimis violations of the

Constitution -- no constitutional harms so
slight that the courts are obliged to
ignore them”.

Griswold v. Connecticut 381 U.S. 479

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“The language and history of the Ninth
Amendment reveal that the Framers of the
Constitution believed that there are

Cont.;
additional fundamental rights, protected
from governmental infringement, which
exist alongside those fundamental rights
specifically mentioned in the first eight
constitutional amendments. . . .

Moreover, a judicial construction that

this fundamental right is not protected by
the Constitution because it is not
mentioned in explicit terms by one of the
first eight amendments or elsewhere in the
Constitution would violate the Ninth
Amendment.

Nor do I mean to state that the Ninth

Amendment constitutes an independent
source of right protected from
infringement by either the States or the
Federal Government. Rather, the Ninth
Amendment shows a belief of the
Constitution’s authors that fundamental
rights exist that are not expressly
enumerated in the first eight amendments
and an intent that the list of rights
included there not be deemed exhaustive.”

United States v. Darby, 312 U.S. 100, 124

(1941).

“While the Tenth Amendment has been

characterized as a ‘truism,” stating
merely that ‘all is retained which has not
been surrendered,’ [citing Darby], it is
not without significance.

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Cont.;

Although the Tenth Amendment has seldom been used

to assert and/or exert a personal reserved power

the Claimant, nevertheless, asserts the ‘reserved

power’, individually as one of the People, granted

by the Tenth Amendment for retaining that which has

not been surrendered; that being the

Constitutionally recognized circumstance, of the

political and of nature, that confers the

naturalness of a natural born citizen.

Claimant alleges said lack of definition of Natural

Born Citizen violates Claimants Fifth Amendment

Rights of Due Process of the Law in that the

Claimants intrinsic personal property guaranteed by

the Ratification of the Constitution and enunciated

as a form of American Citizenship, natural born

citizen, having not been duly codified as have the

numerous Laws promulgated that provide for the

Cont.;
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Naturalizing of new Citizens, thereby deprives and

denies the Claimant of his rights and privileges of

claiming the natural inheritance as a Citizen born

of multiple generations of Citizens as contemplated

by the distinctions of Citizenship within the

Constitution.

Claimant alleges that the United States of America

and, specifically, the Representatives elected,

appointed or otherwise engaged in the publics trust

and in the performance of their mandate to make

uniform the Laws of Naturalization have been

discriminatory in that the form of Citizenship,

natural born citizen, has been ‘excluded and

omitted’ while every circumstance, situation,

happenstance, possibility and probability of

Naturalization of new Citizens has been and

continues to be Codified and / or adjudicated.

Cont.;

Claimant alleges that unequal treatment has

occurred against the Claimants intrinsic personal

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property guaranteed by the Ratification of the

Constitution by the United States of America and,

specifically, the Representatives elected,

appointed or otherwise engaged in the publics trust

in performance of its mandate to make uniform the

Laws of Naturalization, by the “exclusion and

omission” of the definition and acknowledgement of

that citizenship known as natural born citizen

within any and all the Acts, Bills, Laws, Rules and

/ or Regulations hereto promulgated regarding

Citizenship and Naturalization.

Currin v. Wallace, 306 U.S. 1 (1939)

"The Constitution has never been regarded

as denying to the Congress the necessary
resources of flexibility and practicality
which will enable it to perform its
function in laying down policies and
establishing standards while leaving to

Cont.;

selected instrumentalities the making of

subordinate rules within prescribed limits
and the determination of facts to which
the policy as declared by the Legislature
is to apply. Without capacity to give
authorizations of that sort, we should
have the anomaly of a legislative power

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which in many circumstances calling for
its exertion would be but a futility."

United States v. Wong Kim Ark 169 U.S. 649

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE FULLER, with whom
concurred MR. JUSTICE HARLAN dissenting.
(re: 14th Amendment)

“Nobody can deny that the question of

citizenship in a nation is of the most
vital importance. It is a precious
heritage, as well as an inestimable
acquisition, and I cannot think that any
safeguard surrounding it was intended to
be thrown down by the amendment.”

Claimant alleges that, upon recounting the 222

years of Legislation regarding Citizenship and

Naturalization it amounts to a gross negligence of

the United States of America and, specifically, the

Representatives elected, appointed or otherwise

Cont.;

engaged in the publics trust, in the performance of

the mandates to Legislate and then delegate

administrations the Legislated Laws making

Naturalization uniform without looking to the

Constitutional forms of Citizenship found within

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the Constitution its self, Article II Section I

Clause V, and the intent of the distinctions

thereof, thereby denying Claimant of his rights and

privileges of the American form of Citizenship,

natural born Citizen, without due process and with

discriminatory Un-Uniform promulgation of

Naturalization Laws.

Perez v. Brownell 356 U.S. 44

MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER delivered the
opinion of the Court.
“…By the early 1930's, the American law on
nationality, including naturalization and
denationalization, was expressed in a
large number of provisions scattered
throughout the statute books. Some of the
specific laws enacted at different times

Cont.;
seemed inconsistent with others, some
problems of growing importance had emerged
that Congress had left unheeded. At the
request of the House Committee on
Immigration and Naturalization, see 86
Cong.Rec. 11943, President Franklin D.
Roosevelt established a Committee composed
of the Secretary of State, [p53] the
Attorney General and the Secretary of
Labor to review the nationality laws of
the United States, to recommend revisions
and to codify the nationality laws into
one comprehensive statute for submission
to Congress; he expressed particular
concern about "existing discriminations"
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in the law. Exec.Order No. 6115, Apr. 25,
1933…”

Claimant alleges that the United States of America

and, specifically, the Representatives elected,

appointed or otherwise engaged in the publics

trust, in having violated Claimants Fourth

Amendment Rights by extension have violated

Claimants Eighth Amendment Rights against cruel and

unusual punishment in that denying Claimant of that

natural portion of Claimants American

Constitutionally Guaranteed Citizenship Rights and

Cont.;

Privileges have imposed upon Claimant a penalty of

separation from the Constitution and the

internalized allegiance derived from the Claimants

asserted definition of ‘natural born citizen”.

Trop v. Dulles 356 U.S. 86

We believe, as did Chief Judge Clark in
the court below, [n33] that use of
denationalization as a punishment is
barred by the Eighth Amendment. There may
be involved no physical mistreatment, no
primitive torture. There is, instead, the
total destruction of the individual's
status in organized society. It is a form
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of punishment more primitive than torture,
for it destroys for the individual the
political existence that was centuries in
the development. The punishment strips the
citizen of his status in the national and
international political community. His
very existence is at the sufferance of the
country in which he happens to find
himself. While any one country may accord
him some rights and, presumably, as long
as he remained in this country, he would
enjoy the limited rights of an alien, no
country need do so, because he is
stateless. Furthermore, his enjoyment of
even the limited rights of an alien might
be subject to termination [p102] at any
time by reason of deportation. [n34] In
short, the expatriate has lost the right
to have rights.

Cont.;
This punishment is offensive to cardinal
principles for which the Constitution
stands. It subjects the individual to a
fate of ever-increasing fear and distress.
He knows not what discriminations may be
established against him, what
proscriptions may be directed against him,
and when and for what cause his existence
in his native land may be terminated. He
may be subject to banishment, a fate
universally decried by civilized people.
He is stateless, a condition deplored in
the international community of
[n35]
democracies. It is no answer to suggest
that all the disastrous consequences of
this fate may not be brought to bear on a
stateless person. The threat makes the
punishment obnoxious. [n36]

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… When it appears that an Act of Congress
conflicts with one of these provisions, we
have no choice but to enforce the
paramount commands of the Constitution. We
are sworn to do no less. We cannot push
back the limits of the Constitution merely
to accommodate challenged legislation. We
must apply those limits as the
Constitution prescribes them, bearing in
mind both the broad scope of legislative
discretion and the ultimate responsibility
of constitutional adjudication. We do well
to approach this task cautiously, as all
our predecessors have counseled. But the
ordeal of judgment cannot be shirked. “

Cont.;

Denationalization, being a “punishment more

primitive than torture,”, then is not denying that

natural portion of citizenship, that portion which

is required to make one eligible to the highest

office of the land, no less than a severing of

generational ties and an involuntary amputation

upon that Citizenship?

WHEREFORE Plaintiff request, on any one or all

alligations, the same:

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1. An immediate Order of Declaratory Judgement

expressing Courts Opinion of the Constitutional and

Legal Definition of “Natural born Citizen”.

2. Entry of Judgment

By leave of the Court I pray it be so ordered

Pro Se, In Forma Pauperis

_________________________
Steven Lee Craig

1309 Hisel Rd .

Del City , Oklahoma 73115

( 405 ) 670 - 1784

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