I did read on a non-government site something about how the U.S. recognition of dual citizenship had changed in the last ten years, so perhaps in 1961, it wasn’t recognized. But it’s hard to believe that Osama Sr. would have been prevented from exercising his parental right to take the child to Kenya if he so chose. In that case, I cannot believe the U.S. would have prevented him and said it was because Osama Sr. did not give UK allegiance to his son at birth.
Here’s the site: http://www.uscitizenship.info/citizenship-library-dual.htm
And here’s the text:
4. I heard that the US and Canada don’t allow Dual Citizenship. Is this true?
This is incorrect. Both the US and Canada now allow their citizens to hold multiple citizenships. Most references to the contrary are out of date since this has been resolved for at least ten years in the case of the United States and over twenty in the case of Canada. Note that the respective governments often couch dual citizenship in negative terms as few governments like to lose control over their citizens.
So, according to my lights, the distilled question can be stated this way:
In 1961, would the United States government consider a child born in Hawaii of an American mother and a UK subject to have dual citizenship?
What might be helpful to the cause is if a lot of people were to pose this question to their local office of the State Department in their respective cities. I’m in Boston, so I can do it here.
What do you all think? Where are you located? Are you willing to pose this question — in writing or in person — in order to further the effort to arrive at an understanding of the true circumstances of Obama’s citizenship?
Let’s do it! Or do you see a flaw in my “magic question”?
HI, this may seem like a dumb question:
Does this not conflict with the presidental requirements? in the Constitution? Don’t they have to amend the Constitution in this regard?
Just asking.
I like your ‘magic question’. In fact, I like it so much that I’m going to write a few ‘letters to the editor’ letters to local papers and pose the question re Obama. Maybe one or two will publish it!
The question (more suitably expanded on) has already been submitted to the Supreme Court and will be initially considered on Friday.
This seems like a good question to ask. It distills down the actual issue into manageable bits.
The fist bit, "Born in Hawaii". If this is conceded, then it seems impossible to suggest that BO could not meet the qualifications to be president.
Note that children born in the US to tourists -- or even to illegal aliens -- are US citizens by birth. Some politicians have proposed changing the law to deny citizenship to US-born children unless at least one parent is a US citizen or permanent resident alien ("green card" holder). However, since such children are guaranteed citizenship by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution (see the Supreme Court's rulings in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark and Afroyim v. Rusk), it is unlikely that this part of the INA could be successfully changed without another amendment to the Constitution. Even attempts to deny citizenship to such children by redefining them as not being subject to US jurisdiction (as proposed, for instance, by various bills in the current Congress) would probably have a rough time in the courts on account of the Wong Kim Ark precedent.source
Note, that section describes a case that is even more extreme than the Obama case (assuming his birth occurred in Hawaii); that is, the above is a case of the "anchor baby", a baby born in the US by two parents who aren't US citizens. Even in that case, given the precedents cited, it is highly unlikely that "anchor babies" wouldn't be considered citizens.
Of course here, we're not considering the possibility that there could be a distinction between "natural born citizen" and "citizen". However the only relevant distinction would be to say, "Sure someone could be a citizen, but not naturally born unless both parents are citizens".
While novel, this argument seems to beg the question, to put in terms of logical fallacies. That is to say, there is no apparent distinction in the law as written today (at least not that I can find) between a "natural born citizen" and a "citizen", at least if it's conceded that the person in question was born on US soil, or born to two US citizens.
The former is part of the concession of this post (the latter no one claims for Obama). So, since there is no apparent distinction in the law (again, not that I can find) between "natural born citizen" and "citizen", then the argument seems to, again, beg the question.
Up to this point, we have only considered the implications of the conceit, "born in Hawaii". If one also concedes that one was born of one US citizen and one foreign national, and then ask, does that person have dual citizenship (US and the other) then all we need to do is look on FR for that answer: Even fightthesmears.com concedes that BO had dual citizenship at the time of his birth. source
What is important to notice here, as I pointed out on another thread, is that "Since Sen. Obama has neither renounced his U.S. citizenship nor sworn an oath of allegiance to Kenya, his Kenyan citizenship automatically expired on Aug. 4,1982.", apparently his dual citizenship status was lost, over 20 years prior to him running for president.
So, to me at least, the question now becomes, "If someone was EVER a dual citizen, but since has become a singular citizen of the US, can he/she still run for president?" or, does the term "natural born citizen" of the relevant Constitutional passage preclude this possibility?
I'm no legal scholar, but it seems to me that the issue about one's citizenship status should be considered at the time one runs for president, and not at some former time in the past, especially given the fact (in this particular case) Obama had no say in whether or not he was also a citizen of Kenya (he was born that way, he didn't actively choose to be a Kenyan citizen and then renounce it later). To me, that's a significant difference.