Posted on 04/01/2011 10:51:52 PM PDT by neverbluffer
Ok...this question has been bugging me for a long time.
I am adopted. Born in 1965 in NJ. My adoption records are permanently sealed. Both adoptive parents are US Citizens.
I dont know the status of my birth parents, whether or not they were born here since I was adopted at birth.
Like me, millions of people are adopted and do not know and may never know who their real birth parents are. I assume we will face this someday when an adopted child runs for President.
Can I run for President if I wanted to? I was raised at birth by 2 American Citizens as mother and father, but I dont know about my birth parents?
What about all those kids born today by single mothers who never list a father on the birth certificate? Can they run for President?
I think its a good question that will need to be dealt with at some point...
Please comment.
Why should anyone believe a serial 0bot anti-birther troll like you?
Adoption advocates often try to attribute former president Clinton's success to being "adopted". However, it is far from the truth. He attributes his strong sense of social justice to the values that he learned from his grandparents who stepped in to help raise him when his father died and later to his mother.
Bill Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe III in Hope, Arkansas. His father, William Jefferson Blythe, Jr., was a traveling salesman who died in an automobile accident three months before Bill was born. Following his birth, in order to study nursing, his mother Virginia, traveled to New Orleans, leaving Bill in Hope with grandparents Eldridge and Edith Cassidy, who owned and operated a small grocery store. At a time when the Southern United States were racially segregated, Bill's grandparents sold goods on credit to people of all racial groups. In 1950, Bill's mother returned from nursing school and shortly thereafter married Roger Clinton.
Although he assumed use of his stepfather's surname, it was not until he turned fourteen that he formally adopted the surname Clinton, partially as a gesture toward his stepfather. Clinton says he remembers his stepfather as a gambler and an alcoholic who regularly abused his mother and, at times, his half-brother, Roger, Jr.
Reagan wasn’t. Gerald R. Ford Jr. was born Leslie Lynch King, Jr., and took his stepfather’s name, but he was never legally adopted; he legally changed his name in 1935. Similarly, it’s not clear whether Bill Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe) was legally adopted; he used his stepfather’s name throughout childhood, but didn’t make it official until the age of 14. (all according to Wikipedia, so grain of salt implied).
We have two sort-of stepparent adoptions. We haven’t had a president — or candidate that I can recall — who wasn’t raised by his birth mother, or whose parents’ identity isn’t legally established.
Gee it’s too bad FDR didn’t give away the Panama canal before McCain was born there. We had to wait 40-odd yrs. for Jimma Carter to pull that off
/sarc
It’s my understanding that under international treaty, adopted children are issued a new birth certificate in their new country, and are considered de facto natural born citizens. Of course, that’s never been tested in a court, but I think that’s the prevailing legal wisdom on the matter.
Obama’s adoption by his mother’s Indonesian husband (Soetoro), and his enrollment in an Indonesian-citizen-only school, only raise more questions...+
It was brought up as recent as McCain's run for President.
It was an issue when a president, William Chester Alan Arthur, who may well have been born outside this country, presumed Canada, became president.
Does this sound familar?
Dec. 22, 1880:
MATERIAL FOR A DEMOCRATIC LIE
Changing his year of birth is forgivable (Arthur was well beyond the age requirement for the presidency); but could he have changed his place of birth as well? Arthur P. Hinman thought so. Hinman, a New York lawyer, brought the issue to the attention of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in a letter early in August, 1880, while Arthur was yet a candidate for the Vice-Presidency. Arthur evidently had flip-flopped on the issue in the past. One article, dated August 13, quotes a leading Republican in a way reminiscent of more recent campaigns:
"Why in —— don't the General come out and say where he was born, and put an end to all this mystery."
But has it ever been brought up in the case of someone born on U.S. soil to foreign-born parents?
Ding-ding-ding! We have a winnah!
As far as we know (sans COLB), Obama's father could have been anyone. Regards,
There is an amended notation on your birth certificate, just as there is on mine.
If you were required to submit your BC I think we would want to know what is contained in the sealed file as pertains to your birth.
I luckily have known my real father my entire life and don’t fully understand the reasons for giving my name up. But that is a long time and I just don’t care anymore.
In fact, I pass by his house every 6 weeks. I have this favorite drive that I had since I can remember.
I drive up the coast from Half Moon Bay, Drive down to Pacifica and pass by both my grannies homes, before reaching a home I lived in for few years.
Sometimes I sit outside that home and think.
Then I drive over to my other grandma and grandpa home and on the way pass an apartment I lived in.
Amazingly, as I round the corner towards my grandpa and grandma, there is this lot that has been empty since I was at least 4. I know because I would walk from the apartment to my grandma and grandpa and sometimes think it was as big as lake, when it was filled with water. Which seemed to be always in memory.
On the way sometimes I would stop to see my aunt, on my father’s side. She owned a bookstore.
But I would always end up at Grandma’s because she had the sweetest smile and the bluest eyes. She always had food and if she didn’t she would make something.
She was a very inquisitive Grandma. Always full of questions and hugged you so hard it hurt or took your breath away.
There’s more and that’s on my real father’s side, who gave my name up so my Dad could adopt me.
Done
I wish I was adopted.
Nope. The issue is also of Citizenry of the parents.
If the parents are citizens at birth then no problem.
If the parents are from Italy and not naturalized FahGetUhboutIt.
Would that mean then that a child born in the USA to diplomats from, say, Thailand, could return to the USA at age 35 and become president?
Some one else posted on this thread that a child born abroad to U.S. diplomats or military parent(s) are equally eligible to become president. Would that then include, say, children born to missionaries, aid workers, etc., who are U.S. citizens but serve abroad?
We have three children born abroad, and in three different countries. Each possesses a CONSULAR REPORT OF BIRTH ABROAD OF A CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES, issued by the U.S. Department of State. The statute authorizing this document states specifically that these children were U.S. citizens AT BIRTH. Is this absolutely the same as being a "natural born citizen? Could any of these children legitimately hold the office of President of the United States?
If you can provide a birth certificate that shows that you were born in the United States, you can be President.
What we are looking at is the possibility that Zer0 was born in Kenya or that he became an Indonesian citizen when he was adopted by Lolo Soetoro.
Unlike Obama, Authur's father was naturalized soon after his birth, and Authur was an excellent President(after Garfield's assasination) and would likely have been re-elected in 1884, if not for Bright's Disease which slowed him down during the campaign and eventually took his life in mid November of 1886.
U.S. v. Wong Kim ArkU.S. v. Wong Kim Ark's (1898) importance is that it is the first case decided by the Supreme Court that attempts to explain the meaning of "natural born citizen" under Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution. Natural born citizen is similar to the meaning of what a natural born subject is under Common Law in England. That is one of the reasons why the framers specifically included a grandfather clause (natural born Citizen OR a Citizen of the United States, at the time of adoption of this Constitution). The founding fathers knew that in order to be president, they had to grandfather themselves in because they were British subjects. If they didn't, they could not be President of the U.S. The holding in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark states that Wong Kim Ark is a native-born citizen. If you look at the fact of Wong Kim Ark being born in San Francisco, CA, of Chinese parents, that holding is correct.
In U. S. v Wong Kim Ark, the court thoroughly discussed "natural born citizen," and in doing so, Justice Gray quoted directly from the holding in a prior Supreme Court case, Minor v. Happersett (above).
Minor v. Happersett
Natural Born status is mentioned in case law: Minor v. Happersett (1874) 21 Wall. 162, 166-168
"'At common law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country, of parents [plural] who were its citizens [plural], became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further, and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction, without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first. For the purposes of this case, it is not necessary to solve these doubts. It is sufficient, for everything we have now to consider, that all children, born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction, are themselves citizens.' Minor v. Happersett (1874) 21 Wall. 162, 166-168."
The real problem is not where 0bama was born but that his father was a British subject making 0bama a dual-citizen at birth which absolutely precludes being natural born.
"No one prior to the Fall of 2008 believed two citizen parents were necessary..."
You are wrong. NBC was always taught in my civics, government and history classes in the '60s and NBC was always defined as born on American soil to two citizen parents. There was no confusion over the definition.
Anyone with common sense and having read that section of the Constitution will arrive at the same conclusion. Trying to ignore that fact would render meaningless the phrase that imediately follows:
"...or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution..."
As for you assertion that:
"... no judge or constitutional scholar believes it today."
please provide me with the results, both questions and responses, of your survey of every judge and constitutional scholar in the US. That must have taken you a lot of time and money to conduct that survey. If you can not provide that info, then you must admit that you just made that up to improperly bolster your argument and imply that you are an expert on this subject. Next, you make an equally outrageous statement, to wit:
"If you want proof, we've had several presidential and vice presidential candidates in the past whose parents weren't citizens when they were born. No one ever brought up the issue back then."
Yes, I want proof. There is only one. Here are the facts:
Chester Arthur, whose father (a British Citien) became a naturalized American citizen after the birth of Chester (making him a dual citizen like Obama), concealed that fact in order to be placed on the ticket as a VP candidate. Why did he believe he had to conceal the truth by creating such elaborate lies? Nobody discovered the truth until years later, though many tried to prove he was not eligible but were sidetracked with the rumor that he was not born on American soil (the same trick being employed by Obama). The following quote is among the detailed research found here.
"Because Chester Arthur covered up his British citizenship, any precedent he might have set that the country has had a President born of an alien father is nullified completely as Chester Arthur was a usurper to the Presidency. He wouldn’t have been on the ticket if it was public knowledge. Nobody knew Arthur was a British subject because nobody looked in the right place for the truth."
Now it's your turn to provide proof of all the others and proof that "No one ever brought up the issue back then. "
This is a great post that should get a lot of feed back. I think the constitution is pretty clear and the proof lies on the candidate. I’m sure “sealed” records are never really sealed ex background checks for new higher in any one of several of the alphabets. The irony is under their background check requirements Obama couldn’t be hired as things now stand
Hell no!
” I would say that even if they adopted you from another country, you are natural born.”
once an alien, always an alien!
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