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John wrote:

GrillKing wrote:

The Annoyed Man wrote:But like I said earlier... you don't want me for president anyway.

Uh, more so than the President-Elect

Uh, i think i read somewhere that The Annoyed Man inhaled.

Hey man, I enjoyed the '60s and '70s... OK?

That's why you don't want me for president. I might do something crazy like legalize all firearms and nuke Iran.

Kythas wrote:

srothstein wrote:I have to admit that I agree with Annoyed Man on this issue. Obama is a natural born citizen since his mother was a citizen and all the rest is smoke and mirrors. But now I am curious as to why the SCOTUS would want to look further into it. I am going to have to read some breifs if I can and research it further.

Not necessarily. I was born in a civilian hospital in Seoul to my dad, who was in the Army, and my mother was a South Korean citizen. As I was born premature, and the only two incubators in all of South Korea at the time were in a civilian hospital, that's where I was born. Because I was not born on a US military base, even though my dad is American, I was born a South Korean citizen and am now a naturalized US citizen, not a natural born US citizen. Therefore, I can't run for President.

Just because one of your parents is American doesn't mean you automatically are if you're born on foreign soil. Note that US military installations abroad are considered American soil, as are embassies.

Interesting... In my particular case, I was born in a private French hospital in Casablanca, Morocco. My father was a native born American citizen (born in Bismarck, North Dakota), and my mother was French. However, at that time (and I assume it continues today), treaties existed between the U.S. and France which permitted dual citizenship. Therefore, even though I was born with French citizenship by virtue of both having a French mother and being born in what was at the time French territory, I am also a natural born U.S. citizen.

In fact according to one treaty between France and the U.S., military service for either[i/] nation by a dual citizen would fulfill any military obligations for both nations. At the time I was of military service age, we still had a draft (my lottery number was 339 in 1970), and France had mandatory military service for all 18 year olds. I was never drafted nor did I serve in any branch of the U.S. military. At the time, that meant that I was required to serve in the French army - although I didn't know it at the time. I've lived almost my entire life in the U.S.; consider myself an American; and speak with bit of a southern drawl. In the 1980s, one of my two younger brothers and I learned that we had been tried in absentia in France for draft evasion, and sentenced to prison. It required filling out a bunch of paperwork for the French Consul in Los Angeles to get rid of the problem. In true French fashion, rather than admit that they had made a mistake, they simply changed their paperwork to show that we had been drafted, and then released. So somewhere in a French archive, there exists a record of my military service in the French army, even though I have no recollection of it.

Go figure... It's a French thing...

Anyway, the bottom line is that I was, indeed, born on foreign soil, in a foreign hospital, of an American father and French mother, and I am still a natural born citizen. But like I said earlier... you don't want me for president anyway.

John wrote:

Liberty wrote:

KBCraig wrote:It's not just the birth certificate. If he was legitimately born in Hawaii, but adopted by his Indonesian stepfather, then his citizenship lies in Indonesia.

I am confused. If his Mother was an American Citizen then isn't he also an American Citizen?

Yes he is. But the requirement is to be a natural born citizen. There is speculation that he was born in Kenya while him mum was on a trip there. Since he was not around in physical body at the time of the Adoption of the constitution, he doesn't get to rely on the "or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constituion" clause. McCain is kind of, almost, in the same boat though. We know that he was born on a military base in the panama canal, but they had, back then, passed a law saying that anyone on born on the canal to us parents in the military, was considered a US Citizen.

John, see my comments above on the Naturalization Act of 1790.

KBCraig wrote:It's not just the birth certificate. If he was legitimately born in Hawaii, but adopted by his Indonesian stepfather, then his citizenship lies in Indonesia.

A few corrections are in order here...

My father was an American citizen and my mother was French. I was born in foreign country which was, at the time, a French territory - Morocco. Because of this, I am an American citizen who has dual citizenship (American/French), and I am (or was at one time, anyway) eligible for Moroccan citizenship as well. Frankly, I would gladly renounce my French citizenship, but France, in her overarching cultural chauvinism, does not make that possible. There is literally no means by which a French citizen can formally renounce that citizenship. And there is no way on God's green earth that I would ever be interested in Moroccan citizenship.

The Constitution does make mention of natural born citizens, but it does not define the term "natural-born." However, the 1790 Congress, which included many of the men who wrote the Constitution, passed the Naturalization Act of 1790 (signed into law by George Washington), which said (among other things) that, "the children of citizens of the United States that may be born beyond the sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens." Technically, that makes me eligible for the presidency, although you wouldn't want me. I used to smoke a lot of dope, and I inhaled. Besides, the American people have never appreciated true genius.



Now, under current U.S. law, if a pregnant Mexican national crosses into the United States, even illegally, and her child is born here, that child is an American citizen - whether or not you or I like it. There are plenty of arguments for changing that law, but as of right now, that is still the law. If that child's mother then marries a Russian national, who adopts him, and then moves the family to Kenya, that child does not then lose his American citizenship rights just because the adoptive parent is a foreign national and lives in a foreign land, anymore than I lost my citizenship because my father moved my family to France for a year and a half when I was 7 years old. That hypothetical child is still a natural born American citizen. There exists case law to support this, and any competent immigration attorney could dismantle any attempts to disqualify a candidate based on this argument.

Obama was born in 1961. Hawaii was admitted as a state in 1959. Even so, as a territory, the residents of Hawaii had the rights of U.S. citizenship prior to 1959, just as current citizens of Puerto Rico (a U.S. territory) have all the rights of U.S. citizenship. Obama's citizenship rights were not revoked, just because his American mother later married an Indonesian national who adopted him - even if she had later renounced her own American citizenship.

Therefore, unless it can be shown that he was born outside of the U.S. or its territories and that both parents were non-U.S. citizens at the time of his birth, then according to the Naturalization Act of 1790, Obama is a natural born American citizen. There are lots of other reasons for doubting his legitimacy as president-elect, among them the massive voter fraud perpetrated by his grass roots organization, ACORN, and the media's overt efforts as the mouthpiece of his campaign; but he is a natural-born citizen, and is on that basis therefore eligible to serve as President if all other things are in order.

That's my 2¢.