Replies

No, the law states that if a child under 5 is adopted then he or she is granted citizenship. Obama would have been 6 when he and his mother moved to Indonesia and when any such adoption could have taken place. Link

Thanks for the link. That answers one question in the affirmative. As for the rest of your comment, I'm seeing a marriage date of March 15, 1964. Obama would have been three. Close enough for government work. I'm pretty sure the relevant documents in Indonesia would have been Barry's birth certificate and their marriage License, so after what you showed me, it's pretty darned certain that Barry WAS adopted under Indonesian law.

We're talking about adoption in U.S. courts, not Indonesian. Only that would cause U.S. records to be sealed and a new birth certificate issued.

I am not so intimately familiar with the applicable laws in such a situation in (1971) as to be able to say that an Indonesian Adoption is of no Consequence for an American Citizen later in their life. Someone pointed out to me that the United States is a Signatory to the Hague Convention on International adoptions, so it may very well cause Legal complications in American law. Were I an Attorney in 1971, I might very well have advised the Dunham family to take no chances regarding their grandchild's American Citizenship after an Indonesian adoption. I would prefer to err on the side of caution in this, AND regarding the definition of "natural born citizen."

. As for the rest of your comment, I'm seeing a marriage date of March 15, 1964. Obama would have been three. Close enough for government work.

All the sources I've seen put it as March of 1965, when Obama was 4. And also state that while Soetoro was required to return to Indonesia in 1966, Obama and his mother didn't join him until October of 1967 when he would have been 6. Unless Soetoro started the adoption process before Obama joined him then there is no way to make the ages work. And there is no paper trail showing that he did. So there are just as many factors working against Obama being an Indonesian citizen as people claim there are for it.

I can't say it is of no consequence to the individual but I can say that in the case of international adoptions, adoption in a U.S. court does not impact records in the adopted child's country of birth. I see no reason to believe that the reverse would be true. Foreign courts can't seal U.S. records and U.S. courts can't seal foreign records.

Someone pointed out to me that the United States is a Signatory to the Hague Convention on International adoptions, so it may very well cause Legal complications in American law.

The Hague Convention on International Adoption was signed in 1995.