I think the issue that complicates matters is dual citizenship. Was it far less common at the time of the adoption of the Constitution? Could one be deemed a “natural born citizen” of two countries, or maybe even three if one is born in a country where neither parent is a citizen, under applicable law?
I sometimes chide my liberal acquaintances by asking who was the last US president born a British subject. People start thinking back - Madison? Jackson? William Henry Harrison? I tell them it’s Obama, since his father was Kenyan and Kenya was not independent at the time. If Barack Obama Sr. was his biological father, of course.
I am no expert, and am happy to be educated on any or all of my points. But I have not seen anything that indicates that the Founders considered a person born with dual citizenship to be a natural born citizen. Neither did they expressly exclude such a person from the definition, to my knowledge.
PS I understand that there could be another issue brewing over Constitutional interpretation that sill affect elections. Basically, the Constitution directs that congressional districts be created baaed on population. But does that cont people living in a district illegally? If so, then the Democrats don’t even need to get illegals voting; all that needs to be done is to fill Democrat-voting districts with illegals to swell the numbers and gain more congressmen and electoral votes. But that’s a topic for another thread.
last paragraph should say “that will affect elections.”
It is HIGHLY unlikely that Obama was a British citizen.
It’s complicated. It takes reviewing various laws.
It wasn’t automatic at the time if father was a bigamist.By all accounts, he was a bigamist. I have posted the laws time and time again on this.
One of the questions is, ‘Do other countries’ laws affect who is considered a citizen of the US?’
What about divided loyalties? Michele Bachmann became a Swiss citizen (by Swiss law) when she married a Swiss national. Does she have divided loyalties?
Or how about Trump’s Slovenian wife? Does it arouse suspicions of his loyalty?