Kerchner’s “don’t ask don’t tell” ad
I must admit that this is a catchy title for an ad in the February 8 Washington Times, described by Charles Kerchner at the Apuzzo “Right Answers” blog. The ad takes an interesting departure from the usual “legal” approach taken in trying to make Obama ineligible by changing the legal definitions underlying the requirements in the US Constitution.
Kerchner denies that the requirements to be president are a matter of the Constitution, common law, legislation or court decisions, but rather that being president relies on the laws of nature.
While this approach may work personally for Charles Kerchner, it’s not likely to convince anyone that matters, unless it be voters in 2012.
Indonesian school explains Obama’s registration
Much has been made by opponents both here and elsewhere of Obama’s Indonesian school registration at the Asisi School, where his name is written as “Barry Soetoro”, his nationality as “Indonesian” and his religion as “Islam”. From this document, opponents conclude that Obama must have been adopted by his Indonesian step father, Lolo Soetoro, and lost any US citizenship that he once had.
Despite the fact that such loss of citizenship is contrary to both US and Indonesian law, the school record remains. Obama opponents claim that the record is an “official document” and that it would have to have been consistent with a required nationality card (no such card for children) and that only Indonesian nationals could attend school (untrue).
Now, a commenter here has uncovered original footage from a Fox News news story surrounding the uncovering of the document that quotes officials from the school as saying that it was “customary” to put the father’s last name and religion on the school forms.
Obamacrimes reasserts old claims
The BadFiction blog has produce series of articles about the Obama Indonesian citizenship myth:
- The Indonesian Citizenship Myth
- The Indonesian Citizenship Myth – Part 2
- The Indonesian Citizenship Myth – Part 3
Phil Berg’s web site, ObamaCrimes.com has responded in articles including this response to Part 3. In that response, questions are raised about the audio transcript of the interview with Sarah Obama published at BadFiction. McKinnon says that he got his recording from the America First web site (who got it from Berg), and the recording on this web site came from the same source. (The recording, by the way, is still on the Americas Right site.) The recording and transcript are featured in my article: Sarah Obama speaks!
I plowed much of this ground in my article Hollister v Indonesian Citizenship Law. It all boils down to whether you want to believe facts and primary sources, or rumors.
“Natural Born Citizen” at law
Guess Essay by tes, reprinted by permission.
I was playing around on Westlaw last night and found a few more federal and state court cases either noting, or directly addressing, the nature of citizenship of children born to foreign parents and/or citizenship by birth. So, I’m summarizing them here just as FYI. Note that I believe that there are actually dozens (and dozens) of more cases like this – I just didn’t have the time to go through the several hundred cases that were returned by my search. However, this is just a smattering of interesting ones that caught my eye. Links are provided where I could find a publicly accessible version of the case.
Mustata v. US Dept. of Justice, 179 F.3d 1017 (6th Cir. 1999) (children born in US to two Romanian citizens described as “natural born citizens” of the US):
Petitioners Marian and Lenuta Mustata are citizens of Romania. At the time of their petition, they resided in Michigan with their two minor children, who are natural born citizens of the United States.
DeTomaso v. McGinnis, 970 F2d 211 (7th Cir. 1992) (equating “natural born citizen” with “native born citizen” for purposes of presidential eligibility):
DeTomaso is “eligible” to be President of the United States if he is “a natural born Citizen … [who has] attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.” Art. II § 1 cl. 5. A 35-year-old native does not have a property interest in the presidency.
Diaz-Salazar v. INS, 700 F.2d 1156 (7th Cir. 1983) (child born in US to Mexican citizen is “natural born citizen” of US):
Petitioner, Sebastian Diaz-Salazar, entered the United States illegally [from Mexico] in 1974 and has been living and working in Chicago since that time. *** The relevant facts which have been placed before the INS, BIA, and this court can be summarized as follows: The petitioner has a wife and two children under the age of three in Chicago; the children are natural-born citizens of the United States. (more…)
President Obama is US citizen
Citizen Obama
Some of the fringe, who believe that the Supreme Court erred in its decision in US v. Wong, or who believe that Wong only applied to the children of permanently domiciled aliens, need look no further than the Code of the United States to see what Barack Obama’s US citizenship status is:
SEC. 305. [8 U.S.C. 1405] A person born in Hawaii on or after August 12, 1898, and before April 30, 1900, is declared to be a citizen of the United States as of April 30, 1900. A person born in Hawaii on or after April 30, 1900, is a citizen of the United States at birth. A person who was a citizen of the Republic of Hawaii on August 12, 1898, is declared to be a citizen of the United States as of April 30, 1900.
I see no reference to the citizenship of parents in this law.
Government admits: child of foreign nationals born in the US is natural born citizen
This article is being retracted in its entirety. One cannot draw a certain conclusion about the plaintiff’s parents’ citizenship, so the statement of the facts in the case and the government admission leads to no useful information for the controversy at hand.
US v Low Hong
United States v. Low Hong, the United States government admitted that Low Hong was a natural born citizen of the United States.
Low was born in the United States around 1894 of Chinese parents. At that time Chinese persons could not become naturalized citizens because of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. We may, therefore, be certain that Low Hong was not born of US Citizen parents.
Low was being held in bureaucratic limbo because of a law regarding the deportation of aliens. The government admitted that Low was a “natural-born citizen of the United States” but that he must still be held in custody until the deportation determination process concluded.
The court said that the law only applied to aliens and as the government had already admitted that Low was a natural-born citizen, he could not be held.
The Great Mother of all Native Born Citizenship Pages
There seems to be strong historical evidence that the founders of the country considered native born citizen and natural born citizen the same thing. Consider the following from commenter Ballantine and see of you don’t agree:
No court has ruled on NBC. The court has not defined many terms, but that does not mean a definition is in doubt. Even if it was in doubt, the court will look to all early legal authorities to define such term…
With respect to native birth, Wong stated that since the common law was adopted, all children born in the US are generally native born citizens. You are simply trying to read an implication into a choice of terminology. The court made clear the English common law rules controlled and under the common law all the native born (subject to common law exceptions) were by definition “natural born.” I think you need to refresh your Blackstone as you would see there are only 2 classes of people at birth under the common law, the natural born and the alien born. The natural born were also referred to as natives. There is no authority anywhere that says there is a difference between native and natural born under the common law.
Finally, here is a list of early authorities saying that the president needs to be native born citizen or a native. Take notice it includes the most influential scholars of the early republic that court consistently relies upon. If you or Leo [Donofrio] disagree with this multitude you need to find authority to the contrary. Clearly, there you have no such authority.
“No man but a native, or who has resided fourteen years in America, can be chosen President.” Elliot’s Debates –DEBATES IN THE CONVENTION OF THE STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA, ON THE ADOPTION OF THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION, pg 195-196 (statements of future Supreme Court Justice James Iredell, July 30, 1788).
“That provision in the constitution which requires that the president shall be a native-born citizen (unless he were a citizen of the United States when the constitution was adopted) is a happy means of security against foreign influence,…” St. George Tucker, BLACKSTONE’S COMMENTARIES (1803) (more…)
