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That paragraph in the Foreign Affairs manual is deceptive. The second sentence is a claim with no foundation.

And it was added very recently by the Obama people.

I had a detailed discussion two days ago with an experienced former Foreign Service officer on that exact issue just two days ago.

“And it was added very recently by the Obama people.”

The so-called anti-Birther people are saying that is all a conspiracy theory, which brings up an interesting story. Sometime not long after Senator Orrin Hatch introduced a bill for an Amendment to the Constitution which would eliminate the natural born citizen clause. The motivation was described as being for the purpose of making it possible for Arnold Schwarzneggar to become elected as the POTUS. I was researching the Foreign Affairs Manual (FAM 7) and used quotations from it. Sometime after that someone challenged my quotes and said there was no such quotation in the FAM 7. Irritated, I went online again to get the same quotation. What I did not find was surprising. The quotation was gone, and some new stuff was there. Since then, I have been trying to find a source for the obsolete editions of the FAM, so I can present evidence of how it is being edited and changed. So, I know from personal experience the FAM 7 is being changed to alter the meaning of some phrases. I suspect but cannot presently supply evidence of such changes affecting this paragraph.

If anyone has access to the old manuals by LEXIS or other means and can supply the text, it would be much appreciated.

Note, the prior paragraph also states, “In any event, the fact that someone is a natural born citizen pursuant to a statute does not necessarily imply that he or she is such a citizen for Constitutional purposes.” This when taken in context with the prior sentences means even if a statute did confer natural born citizenship, a statute cannot be used to alter the Constitution and its usage of the terminology to determine who is a natural born citizen.