Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Not A Citizen?

Commenter Jane at Just One Minute posted this interesting e-mail she received.

Barack Obama is not a legal U.S. natural-born citizen according to the law on the books at the time of his birth, which falls between December 24, 1952, to November 13, 1986. Federal Law requires that the office of President requires a natural-born citizen if the child was not born to two U.S. Citizen parents. This is what exempts John McCain, though he was born in the US Panama Canal Zone.

US Law very clearly states: ". . . If only one parent is a U.S. Citizen at the time of one's birth, that parent must have resided in the United States for minimum ten years, five of which must be after the age of 16." Barack Obama's father was not a U.S. Citizen is a fact.

Obama's mother was only 18 when Obama was born. This means even though she had been a U.S. Citizen for 10 years, (or citizen of Hawaii being a territory), his mother fails the test for at-least-5-years- prior-to Barack Obama's birth, but-after-age-16.

In essence, Mother alone is not old enough to qualify her son for automatic U.S. Citizenship. At most, 2 years elapsed from his mother turning 16 to the time of Barack Obama's birth when she was 18. His mother would have needed to have been 16 + 5 = 21 years old at the time of Barack Obama's birth for him to be a natural-born citizen. Barack Obama was already 3 years old at the time his mother would have needed to be to allow him natural citizenship from his only U.S. Citizen parent. Obama should have been naturalized as a citizen . . . but that would disqualify him from holding the office.
Now I'm starting to see why the birth certificate issue is so important. It would list his father. It also explains Bill Clinton's statement: "I never was mad at Sen. Obama. I think everybody's got a right to run for president who qualifies under the Constitution.

Which may mean the forgery issue re: the birth certificate is a red herring. The real issue is who is your daddy?

So the question is: was Hawaii a State when Obama was born? He says he is 46 years old. That would be 1962. Hawaii became a State on August 21, 1959. Well that blows that theory. If he was born in the USA he is an American citizen. Period.

OTOH commenter Sarah had this to say:
As a genealogist, I could not list Barack Obama Sr. as the legal father since he was never "legally" married to Barack's mother. He was already married. So technically Barack would be considered illegitimate, a more complicated matter back in 1961 than today.

Texas Darlin did a post about adoption when the adoptive parent is Indonesian and how if the child is under 5, citizenship reverts to Indonesia, over 5, dual citizenship, which is not recognized by Indonesia, but is by the U.S.

The answer lies somewhere in the illegitimate birth and possible subsequent adoption by Soetoro.
Texas Darlin looks at the citizenship angle from the adoption point of view.

1. Obama was born in Hawaii on Aug. 4, 1961, with the legal name Barack Hussein Obama II, and Barack H. Obama Sr. was identified as his legal father. [NOTE: an alternative theory, that Obama was born in Canada, is still being researched.]

2. Obama was adopted by Lolo Soetoro in Hawaii sometime around 1965-1966.

3. As part of the adoption procedure, pursuant to Hawaiian law, Obama’s original Birth Certificate (BC) was sealed, and a new Birth Certificate was issued with his new name, Barry Soetoro, and the name of his new father, Lolo Soetoro.

4. Mother and son joined Soetoro in Indonesia, where Barry Soetoro was registered in school as Lolo’s son, a Muslim, and a citizen of Indonesia.

5. After approximately 4 years, Barry Soetoro returned to Hawaii as a U.S. citizen to live with his grandparents, the Dunhams, and attend private school.

6. At some point before his 18th birthday, he most likely changed his legal name back to Barack Hussein Obama, but his Birth Certificate would not have been modified again unless there was another adoption (by the Dunhams, for example).
What does all this mean? Maybe nothing.

All Barry has to do to scotch the rumors is to release his birth records.

If he does have dual citizenship that will cause him problems with a lot of the electorate. If he is not an American citizen it is all over for him.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

5 comments:

Pax Federatica said...

If he does have dual citizenship that will cause him problems with a lot of the electorate. If he is not an American citizen it is all over for him.

Considering (1) how powerful the American Left remains and (2) how eagerly they have gone to bat for illegal immigrants over the years, even if Obama has citizenship issues I sadly doubt that they will be anything more than a speed bump for his campaign.

On the other hand, in the end the Left may just be paving the way for Obama to charge headlong into an electoral disaster of McGovernian, if not Mondalean proportions. So yeah, if he's not a citizen it is all over for him.

Will Brown said...

Hold on a minute, how did Obama do this:

5. After approximately 4 years, Barry Soetoro returned to Hawaii as a U.S. citizen to live with his grandparents, the Dunhams, and attend private school.

Either Obama was a US citizen for Constitutional purposes by this point in his life, or someone's telling a whopper of a porky pie here.

There's only one way for a still living civilian to return to the US as a US citizen and that's with a US passport.

A simple edit of the quoted statement results in this possibility:

5. After approximately 4 years, Barry Soetoro returned to Hawaii to live with his grandparents, the Dunhams, and attend private school as a U.S. citizen.

How reliable is the information regarding the sister's COLB? Do the private school's records retain young Barry's original registration documents?

Curiouser and curiouser.

Tom Cuddihy said...

Incorrect, Will. Until very recently, minors like at the time the 7 year old Obama didn't need passports to get into and out of the country.

My thoughts on this whole controversy --there seems to be confusion over exactly what is a forgery, and over what that proves. So far the answers I see are "nothing except that somebody at Kos lied"

Tom Cuddihy said...

Actually my most worrying thought on this controversy is that Hillary knows it and is just waiting to spring it until next week. That would throw a wrench into the whole works, especially if Hillary became the nominee. It would also explain why she's only "suspended" and never actually ended her campaign.

It would throw McCain's lead into question as he'd be fighting the wrong target. And there's a question as to whether or not he'd be able to pivot his campaign to confront a much more middle-of-the-road and worthy adversary as opposed to the joke that is the messaiah's campaign.

Oh, and from a paranoid Edgar Cayce type conspiracy theorist side, it'd match various elements of Rev ch. 13...

M. Simon said...

Tom,

I think the Clinton campaign will spring this after Obama is nominated and files his papers to get on the ballot.

There is no profit in Hillary running this year. Too many Obama people in the DNC. She has to clean them out.

BTW see my latest post on the issue.