>> Obama eligibility - first question should be “what constitutes eligibility?” Actual progress was “Where was he born?”<<
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I agree.
The key question, as you described it, was seldom stated.
I did go to the US Government INS website to see ... and found that the laws have shifted a bit over the years ... but when Zero was born, IF OUTSIDE THE U.S., then HE WAS NOT AN AMERICAN CITIZEN AT BIRTH.
Thus he could never have become a natural born citizen.
The criteria were:
1) Mother (American) married to a foreign national
2) Mother having reside less than 19 years in the U.S.
3) Mother was 18 at the time.
Hence, IF HE WAS NOT BORN ON U.S. soil, then he was NOT A CITIZEN.
I should add, the law changed a few years later, allowing an 18 year old mother to convey citizenship. But this was not retroactive.
One is either born NBC, or not. There is no "becoming" one after the fact.
I agree, if he was not born on US soil, not a citizen at all, at least not by incident of birth.
I was all over the issue with Cruz, and know the law on this subject very well. I point to Rogers v. Bellei, and a few other (later) cases that prove birth on US soil is MANDATORY to be NBC. McCain is not eligible.
No, that wasn't the law at the time, and isn't and never was the structure of the law. Not important for the conclusion, I agree with your conclusion. But you get there with made up law.
The structure has age of mom (if mom is the US citizen component), plus years of US domicile (typical 4 or 5 years) within one year of the birth.
And you still miss my point.
Question, is a dual citizen, or a citizen with mixed citizen parents, a natural born citizen under the law?
I'm not asking or seeking to answer that question, just pointing out that it was never asked. Obama was as much a UK citizen at birth as a US citizen, if we accept the facts stated on the face of the phony BC. Is a dual citizen at birth a NBC under the US constitution?
The democrats who certified his eligibility to be a US President either lied or know that his true father is an American citizen, but choose not to reveal who that is. Whether a lie or a lack of candor, it's made viable by the tactics of the deep state: heaping scorn and derision on anyone who doubts 0's eligibility, and spewing obfuscation of the law and facts.
It's been a long time since I've opined on this subject ... take my opinion for what it's worth ... about 2 cents.
I also did research, even though my civics class had stated for the purposes of Presidential eligibility, it had to be 2 citizen parents and born on American soil. Also no dual citizen status allowed.
I found a State Dept. Document for the overseas offices to use to register Am. citizens. That document made a distinction between citizenship by statute, versus natural born citizen for constitutional requirement for eligibility.
Further stated that no court had determined that a person born overseas would be eligible - those who were concerned with the issue should return stateside to give birth.
I also read an interesting legalistic document, discussing the various court cases as well as legislation. Congress has the constitutional authority to establish requirements for naturalized citizens who have immigrated.
This document seemed to state that Congress did not have the authority to define the term natural born citizen requirement for President - that would take a constitutional amendment.
I also read about a Supreme Court decision where it was stated that there were no doubts that a child born to 2 citizen parents born on US soil was a citizen, but as to other categories there were doubts.
Then they noted that it was not necessary to determine the answer to that question for the case in front of them. Too bad they didn’t take the opportunity to settle it right then and there.
I didn’t really participate much in those discussions - I felt he was so unqualified and his politics so radical, that was what needed to be questioned the most, since the press had already succeeded in labeling the birth issue as nutty.