Is Obama's candidacy even constitutional?

WorldNetDaily ^ | 10 June 2008

[Hal1950]

Bloggers are raising questions about Illinois Sen. Barack Obama's qualifications to be U.S. president, because of the secrecy over his birth certificate and the requirement presidents be "natural-born" U.S. citizens.

Jim Geraghty, reporting on the Campaign Spot, cited the "unlikely" but still circulating rumor that Obama was born not within the United States, but elsewhere, possibly Kenya.

[processing please hold]

Most voters would remain totally unaware of this.

And you know this how? The media can only cover for him so long. The closer to elections, the hotter the heat. Why do you think a lot of the dems are already suffering from buyers remorse? obamassiah is never going to be president.

[Dagny&Hank]

In the chart at the following US Immigration link the age is 14 not 16. But Barack's mother still didn't meet the requirement even if she was in the US from age 14 to 18. Barack Obama isn't a citizen! Is that why Hillary has not yet conceded?

http://www.uscis.gov/files/article/A4.pdf

[top 2 toe red]

...obamassiah is never going to be president.

I agree...but, ignorant drummed up crap like this is not what is going to defeat him.

The media can only cover for him so long.

You just answered your own question as to how I know this...you think the majority of voters read FreeRepublic?

Hell, most don't even watch cable news or read newspapers much less read obscure Conservative websites. So, if the ABCNBCCBS don't tell them, how are they finding out stuff like this?

[Lurking Libertarian]

In the chart at the following US Immigration link the age is 14 not 16. But Barack's mother still didn't meet the requirement even if she was in the US from age 14 to 18. Barack Obama isn't a citizen! Is that why Hillary has not yet conceded?

If he was born in Hawaii, he's a citizen regardless of the citizenship of his parents.

[Publius]

What is he hiding?

It's not the birthplace, but the birthdate that is the lie. Barry was really born in February 1962 during the Grand Conjunction in Aquarius. He is the Great Aquarian Avatar long awaited by the New Age religions. (The Traditionally Religious have a different name for him.)

[Cicero]

What does the Mayan Calendar say about him? Will he bring the world to an end in 2012?

[Publius]

Good question. I haven't a clue. Same thing for the Vedic prophesies out of the Hindu faith.

The New Agers expect the Great Avatar to found a new religion, bring peace on earth and set up a world government. So maybe he is re-elected in 2012 and becomes President of the World in 2016.

[soupcon]

What is he hiding?
__________________________
Apparently nothing.
The birth certificate has been posted at a variety of blogs in the last 24 hours. You guys need to get out more.

[Stars&StripesNE]

This is on Obama's Website

http://my.barackobama.com/page/invite/birthcert

No seal, no hospital, nothing. Are there any Freepers in Hawaii who can verify this is what they issue?

[DrC]

I'm no expert, but I believe naturalization by definition only applies to births occurring outside the U.S. All persons born in the United States, except those not subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S. government (such as children of foreign diplomats) are citizens under the Fourteenth Amendment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural-born_citizen The foregoing implies that so long as Obama was born in Hawaii, he automatically was a US citizen regardless of either the citizenship or marital status of his parents. That's why babies of illegal immigrants are still accorded US citizenship status. All the text you provided in your post appears to relate to naturalization. FWIW, I interpret the 1 year continuous period simply to refer the mother having to have lived in US for such a period SOMETIME before the birth, not IMMEDIATELY before the birth. I think they are trying to account for mothers who long ago were US citizens, emigrated abroad without changing their citizenship, and then gave birth abroad to an infant fathered by a non-citizen. So long as they go through the naturalization process, such infants can become US citizens. I forget whether it's in the Wikipedia article cited above, but somewhere I read that the reason for the asymmetry in how illegitimate births are handled for female US citizens and male US citizens is that Congress didn't want a whole pile of illegitimate Vietnam war babies to automatically be entitled to US citizenship even though their fathers either denied paternity or had no interest in supporting the child etc. Hence they set a much higher bar to naturalization. Bottom line: unless the posted birth certificate at DailyKos is a forgery, it appears BHO is a natural-born citizen.

[usmcobra]

On One of these threads I posted a link to actual case law pertaining to the issue of single parent and citizenship and the right to citizenship when dual citizenship was established for a child and how citizenship can be denied to a US citizen with dual citizenship.

And rather then have you go dig in up here is another link to it It really is fascinating stuff.

If you are not confused now wait until you get through that one.

It is of course a ruling by the Infamous Ninth Circuit.

Among my many concerns about this issue is that his mother was very Anti American and decided to live out her life in Indonesia. To me at least that raises a red flag of did she take steps to ensure that Obama or Barry Soetoro was only an Indonesian citizen when he was adopted by his step father, and did he travel with her to the United States on Indonesian passports. we should also remember that when the employees of an Obama adviser were caught going through Obama's Passport records it was Obama himself that cried the loudest over what might have been a Watergate break in into his electronic records by people on his own staff.

Personally I believe that the records were being Sanitized for our consumption in a Bergerese operation to hide anything that may be prevent him from serving if those items were to be exposed.

The correct way to remove any doubt is to release the original document and any other document that may be problematic so far nothing of the sort has happened.

[DrC]

But the case you link to isn’t relevant to Obama since the child involved was born abroad, not in the U.S. Because of that, the mom had to meet the prevailing statutory requirements, which apparently were a lot stricter than today (10 yrs. living in US vs. I believe only 1 or 2 years when Obama was born). Since she’d only lived in US 2 years and the father was NOT a US citizen, she didn’t meet the statutory rule of 10 years, hence could not confer citizenship on the son. This seems pretty straightforward to me.

The Indonesian adoption is an entirely separate matter. I have no idea how that works: i.e., can a mother permanently “renounce” U.S. citizenship on behalf of a child or would instead that child be given dual citizenship with the opportunity to restore his previous US citizenship at age 18 if he so chose? I was born in Austria of 2 US parents, and IIRC, had up until age 21 to decide between remaining US citizen or becoming an Austrian citizen. Given the importance attached to US citizenship, it would surprise me if a parent could permanently take away a child’s US citizenship with no chance for that child to “revisit” the decision upon reaching the age of majority.

But if in the hypothetical case Obama entered Hawaii as an Indonesian citizen, I would think that at least SOMEBODY privy to his birth certificate would have made this public.
There’s all sorts of official records—school, medical, driver’s license etc.—that require reporting citizenship and/or submission of an official record (e.g., passport). Obama was only of school age when he returned to Hawaii, so there shouldn’t have been any motivation to cover up the fact he was an Indonesian citizen in anticipation that he would need to demonstrate his US citizen bona fides in 2008 to run for president etc. So I’m agnostic but lean skeptical on whether there’s any “fire” on the adoption side.