Was Obama actually a legal US citizen if his Daddy was already married to someone else?

a reply to: ketsuko

The one that always made me curious and still does is the sealing of his college transcripts.

Everyone has to release all these records and get the public anal probe by the press, but no one cares about this?

False. Academic records like this are 'sealed' for everyone. Yours. Mine. Obama's. Mitt Romney. Ted Cruz. Everyone.

This is getting silly really quickly. I'm gonna answer lots of posts all at once.


a reply to: ketsuko

Technically, I think the President is supposed to be the child of two naturalized US citizens.

That is incorrect.

a reply to: gmoneystunt

O this is what i was actually confused about

Conventional wisdom holds that candidates for president must be born on U.S. soil to serve in the highest office in the land. That belief, however, appears to be a misinterpretation

The misinterpretation refers to people who are born over seas. Depending on the status of your parents (at your birth) you may be a natural born citizen.

a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

He could be native born (in the U.S.A.) but not naturally born (both parents being American citizens).

100% false.

a reply to: amazing

The President's mother was an American Citizen so...case closed? That's all we need, right?

No. The President was born in Hawai'i. That's all we need. His mother status has nothing to do with it.

The Actual Case:

The President must be a Natural Born Citizen.

Being a Natural Born Citizen has nothing to do with your parents citizenship status unless you were born overseas.

If you are born in America, you are a Natural Born Citizen. Period (standard exception for diplomats and invading army).

If you are born overseas, like Ted Cruz or John McCain, the answer is more complicated and does depend on the status of your parents (McCain and Cruz satisfy the requirements).

Once again, the citizen status of your Parents doesn't come into it if you are born in the good ol USA. If you are born overseas, then their status becomes important to decide if were born a citizen (born a citizen = Natural Born Citizen).

a reply to: ketsuko

There was never any question about John McCain being a citizen of Panama, either.

The US government leases the land of military bases. The land of those bases is temporarily sovereign US territory. So, yes, John McCain is born in the US even though that base was in Panama.

That is not quite correct.

McCain was not born in Panama; he was born in the Panama Canal Zone. He is a Natural Born Citizen because Congress passed a law that made the Canal Zone a special territory of the U.S. and declared that persons born there were U.S Citizens. Born Citizen = Natural Born Citizen. Being born on an overseas military base doesn't necessarily make you a citizen however. Certainly in McCain's case, both his parents were American Citizens so he could have been born in London and still have been NBC. Ted Cruz was born in Canada to an American mother and a Cuban father who fought with Castro and he is an NBC too.

However, I am interested in what happened with his second father. Did his step-father adopt him and did he take Indonesian citizenship? This would give him dual citizenship and was that ever renounced?

Is this thread going to rehearse every stupid conspiracy theory about Obama?

It is and was LEGALLY impossible for President Obama to take Indonesian Citizenship under Indonesian law. He would have to have been under the age of 5 for it to be even remotely possible. There is no evidence that Soetoro ever adopted Obama. Dual-citizenship has nothing what-so-ever to do with anything, even if he did have it.

a reply to: Danny85

From what I know about the US constitution, it doesn't matter where the parents are from, if the child is born on American soil then they are either an American citizen or hold duel citizenship.

Not quite.

If the child is born on American soil it is a Natural Born Citizen of the United States of America. End of story.

The issue of Dual-citizenship is irrelevant and a red herring. Every nation has the right to set its own citizenship rules. If some country says that one of its citizens children, born anywhere in the world, is a citizen of their country, that is not anything to do with American law.

For example: America claims its citizens, Canada claims its citizens. Ted Cruz is a Natural Born Canadian citizen because he was born on Canadian soil. Ted Cruz is a Natural Born American Citizen because, even though he was born overseas his parents met the criteria that Congress has established for granting citizenship from birth. Both are operative at the same time; Cruz' American citizenship is irrelevant to Canada, his Canadian citizenship is irrelevant to America.

To deny that Cruz, or anybody, is a Natural Born Citizen because he hold dual citizen is to grant foreign countries the control over who can and who cannot be U.S. President. Greece for example, grants citizenship to grandchildren of Greek Citizens, where ever they are born; few Americans would be eligible if that mattered.

I think that Cruz at least attempted to renounce his Canadian citizenship.

a reply to: ketsuko

There is a different between citizen which is what you are describing and natural born citizen which what you need to be to be president.

Actually no there isn't. The only difference is between "Natural Born" and "Naturalized". A citizen, born on American soil is a Natural Born Citizen end of story. Dual citizenship has nothing to do with it.

a reply to: TheWhiteKnight

Before Obama was made into POTUS, I had seen the media proclaim proud things about this Illinois senator from Kenya.

Your memory is faulty, because that never happened.

a reply to: Skadi_the_Evil_Elf

Obama's citizenship didn't come from his father, but his mother.

Wrong. See my other posts.

a reply to: boymonkey74

Sorry his mum is called Stanley? Lol.

Welcome to the world.

originally posted by: buster2010
a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

He could be native born (in the U.S.A.) but not naturally born (both parents being American citizens).

There is nothing that says both parents have to be citizens.

It was my understanding that is was how it worked. Do you have a link or a quote to verify your statement? I'd like to know so I'm not misinformed on that issue. Thanks in advance.

ETA: I just read Rnaa responses (sounds reasonable to me) and would ask the same of him. Also thanks in advance for your reply.

a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

It was my understanding that is was how it worked. Do you have a link or a quote to verify your statement? I'd like to know so I'm not misinformed on that issue. Thanks in advance.

ETA: I just read Rnaa responses (sounds reasonable to me) and would ask the same of him. Also thanks in advance for your reply.

The Constitution
The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States

All persons born in the country are citizens (subject to the standard jurisdiction restrictions of foreign diplomats and invading army).

Scotus Case Number 1: Minor v Happersett
In this case Ms. Virginia Minor was asking the court to find that her rights as a citizen was being infringed when she was refused the right to vote. The court found against Ms. Minor - there is (or rather, was at that time) no provision in the Constitution that required every citizen the right to vote.

The opinion (written by Chief Justice Morrison Waite) first asked whether Minor was a citizen of the United States, and answered that she was, citing both the Fourteenth Amendment and earlier common law. Exploring the common-law origins of citizenship, the court observed that "new citizens may be born or they may be created by naturalization" and that the Constitution "does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens." Under the common law, according to the court, "it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners." The court observed that some authorities "include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents"—but since Minor was born in the United States and her parents were U.S. citizens, she was unquestionably a citizen herself, even under the narrowest possible definition, and the court thus noted that the subject did not need to be explored in any greater depth.

The first bolded part is the significant part of this discussion - there are exactly two, and not more than two, types of citizen: born and naturalized.

The second bolded part refers to the two parents issue. It said that there was some doubt about whether parents had to be citizens or not, but since Ms. Minor's parents were both citizens the doubts had no bearing on the question before it (the doubts about people with only one or zero citizen parent is addressed by the second SCOTUS case I link below). Having established that Ms. Minor was definitely a citizen, the Court could then go on to address whether or not the Constitution guaranteed the right to vote.

SCOTUS case number 2: United States v Wong Kim Ark

source

Wong Kim Ark, who was born in San Francisco to Chinese parents around 1871, had been denied re-entry to the United States after a trip abroad, under a law restricting Chinese immigration and prohibiting immigrants from China from becoming naturalized U.S. citizens. He challenged the government's refusal to recognize his citizenship, and the Supreme Court ruled in his favor, holding that the citizenship language in the Fourteenth Amendment encompassed essentially everyone born in the U.S.—even the U.S.-born children of foreigners—and could not be limited in its effect by an act of Congress.

The case highlighted disagreements over the precise meaning of one phrase in the Citizenship Clause—namely, the provision that a person born in the United States who is subject to the jurisdiction thereof acquires automatic citizenship. The Supreme Court's majority concluded that this phrase referred to being required to obey U.S. law; on this basis, they interpreted the language of the Fourteenth Amendment in a way that granted U.S. citizenship to almost all children born on American soil (a concept known as jus soli). The court's dissenters argued that being subject to the jurisdiction of the United States meant not being subject to any foreign power—that is, not being claimed as a citizen by another country via jus sanguinis (inheriting citizenship from a parent)—an interpretation which, in the minority's view, would have excluded "the children of foreigners, happening to be born to them while passing through the country".

Wong Kim Ark had ZERO citizen parents. The case swung on what 'under the jurisdiction' meant, not how many parents were citizens. The court found that 'under the jurisdiction' means 'responsible to the legal system'. WKA's parents could not even be legally naturalized since they were Chinese and Congress had excluded them. The Court found that WKA was a citizen because he was born in America - the status of his parents had nothing to do with it.

Following the logical chain of the two cases:

1) there are only two types of citizenship - born and naturalized
2) WKA is a citizen because he was born in America
3) the Constitution references the term "Natural Born Citizens" to exclude "naturalized' citizens

Conclusion 1: citizens who are born in America are therefore exactly the natural born citizens referred to in the Constitution.
Conclusion 2: when a child is born in America, the citizenship status of the parents is irrelevant to the child's citizenship

As for citizens born overseas:
1) there are only two types of citizenship - born and naturalized
2) Congress has declared that children born overseas to citizen parents that meet certain criteria are themselves born citizens
3) Such children born overseas are 'born citizens' not naturalized

Conclusion 1: children born overseas to citizen parents are born citizens and so are also natural born citizens
Conclusion 2: when a child is born overseas, the citizenship status of the parents is relevant to the child's citizenship

The purpose of the natural born citizen clause is to protect the nation from foreign influence. Alexander Hamilton, a Convention delegate from New York, wrote in Federalist No. 68 about the care that must be taken in selecting the president: "Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one quarter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils."[5] St. George Tucker, an early federal judge, wrote in 1803 that the natural born citizen clause is "a happy means of security against foreign influence", and that "The admission of foreigners into our councils, consequently, cannot be too much guarded against."[6] Delegate Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina said in a speech before the Senate, "to insure experience and attachment to the country, they have determined that no man who is not a natural born citizen, or citizen at the adoption of the Constitution, of fourteen years residence, and thirty-five years of age, shall be eligible."[7]

Actually the phrase natural-born in relation to the president is not defined, but the writings of the Founders make it clear what the intent was.

So, do you think they had it in mind for someone with non-American parents who was raised in an unassimilated manner to be President? Keep in mind that such a person would have foreign influence.

Will this stop iin 2016?

No really.

Are we going to bring up again how Obama had the phrase natural born removed from all dictionaries too?

interesting info FYI stuff here...


www.allnewspipeline.com...

""
barry hawaiian hs pics & a audio track starting at the 48: minute mark for the interesting revelations about the foreign student Barry (barack obama) the dope head/homo/slick SOB that he was (narcisstic personality disorder PUNKASS) ~flaunting around like a dope pusher/top dawg/'got-it-made MF'....but Barry is proficient and expert at hiding his mental disease 'DSM'
in fact Mia relates that Barry was a 'coke whore' at the 1:18 mark...'gay-ray' was his connection (gay-ray was later killed by his Gay-Lover in '87with a hammer...)

familiar name: 'poporo soetero' (dark guy soetero) in pigeon speak among the HS circle which included Barry --> to a degree ""


I am sure that morality issues by the biological father would not negate the Constitutional protections of Barry & his citizenship...
ain't it wry & ironic that the Constitution that allowed Barry, the family/extended family to come take advantage of the goodness of America is under siege and violation of It's integrity by the greatest beneficiary of twisting the Laws to his own end advantage..
its like Barry is deliberately slamming shut the door to the rest of humanity after he got his...whadda churl

a reply to: rnaa

Thank God SOMEONE has the patience to, yet again, quell these stupid birther rumors with FACTS. Yet again. For 8 full years now, people have been beating this horse!

originally posted by: ~Lucidity
Will this stop iin 2016?

It's time to double-down on this before he does something crazy! LOL!

a reply to: Benevolent Heretic

I can see the headlines now...

Reuters: Jan 23, 2017 Birthers Fight to Move to SCOTUS to Revoke All Obama Executive Orders and Vacation Days

Yep, more and more, it becomes apparent the validity of what has been said about this site, and no, I'm not going to explain further.

Anyway, I like to go by what the FOUNDERS had in mind concerning the definition of natural born citizen. Vattel's Law of Nations, letters from that era, etc. define the term. And the citizenship (there are different types of citizens) of BOTH parents does matter, for those who say otherwise. Real sick and tired of lies being promoted for obvious agendas!

To the OP.

Obamas citizenship (and eligibility for president) has been endlessly covered on ATS and elsewhere. One wonders whether there would have been this focus if he was white.

It's all a bit silly. Suggest look back into the past and see the myriad comment and conclusions already made.

a reply to: paraphi

already answered by phage for me on page 1,but thanks for your civil reply.

Here's what can easily happen when a foreign born child is adopted.

When a child is adopted, the child’s birth certificate will be changed to reflect that information. The nature of the changes and how they are made may depend on the state in which the child and adoptive parents reside. In many cases, the original birth certificate may be kept and sealed after an adoption and a new birth certificate may be created.

** What changes are made to a birth certificate after an adoption? **

Google " adoption altered birth certificate " for more info.

a reply to: xuenchen

And that is absolutely irrelevant, as Obama was not adopted.

originally posted by: Benevolent Heretic
a reply to: xuenchen

And that is absolutely irrelevant, as Obama was not adopted.

Ignore the old fox, that's what he does best.