Incorrect. That only applies to parents not born in the U.S. who become citizens and have a child.
Since Obama’s mother was born in the U.S. she is automatically a citizen no matter how long she lived in the U.S. Her parents were U.S. citizens and she was born in the U.S. She is instantly a U.S. citizen at birth.
Since Obama’s mother is a natural born citizen, it doesn’t matter where he was born. He is still a U.S. citizen because of his mother. Just like John McCain. Children born to a U.S. mother are U.S. citizens even if they are born on the moon.
The length of the time she lived in the USA was not supposed to relate to citizenship, it was supposed to relate to his eligibility for president. To quote from Wikipedia,
My father was born in China in the 1920’s to American missionary parents, both native-born Americans, with family trees being native-born Americans at least to the 18th century. He was apparently conceived on the voyage over. He maintained from the 1960’s (when I first asked him) until his death that he was a native-born citizen and was eligible to be elected President (he never got the chance, and I doubt he would have taken the job).
Within the past ten years, he did tell me that when he turned 18 (I think it was) he had to denounce any claim to a Chinese citizenship (this was pre-communist). I think this was to be register for the WWII draft, but I am not positive about this point. My birth certificate states my mother’s birthplace as Illinois and my father’s as China. My uncle (paternal) was born in Pennsylvania, which is where my father grew up past the age of 2.
I truly doubt anyone would ever had questioned his citizenship. He was no more Chinese than Lincoln. A life-long Republican (similar to Lincoln), except for the past few years when political affiliation has really become rather insane, I doubt the Birther’s would question the child of US born Christian missionaries was a “native born” citizen. If not him, then why Obama?
This is simply not correct. People who are U.S. citizens themselves don’t necessarily transmit U.S. citizenship to their children if they have not lived in the U.S. for a requisite period of time. This is to prevent indefinite transmission of U.S. citizenship to people born abroad who have never lived in the U.S. See Alley Dweller’s link above.
At the time of Obama’s birth, his mother was not yet 19. Since she had not lived in the U.S. for more than 5 years after the age of 14 (since she was not old enough to satisfy that criterion), technically she could not have transmitted her citizenship to a child that was not born in the U.S. The question of course is moot since Obama was born in the U.S.
Also through a technicality, John McCain, although born of U.S. parents, did not qualify for U.S. citizenship at the time of his birth. The law was retroactively changed in order to confer U.S. citizenship on those born in McCain’s circumstances.
AFAIK, for the purposes of the 14th Amendment, only birth in a state or an incorporated territory is birth “in the United States.” Right now (and in 1961), that means the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Palmyra Atoll. (Palmyra Atoll was incorporated as a a part of the Hawaii Territory and later split off.)
It was at the Coco Solo Naval Station in the Canal Zone. Technically the Canal Zone, although under U.S. jurisdiction (according to treaty, the U.S. had the authority to act “as if it were sovereign,” but not actual sovereignty), was never part of the United States and remained legally Panamanian soil. Birth in the Canal Zone by itself did not confer U.S. citizenship.
Hawaii was an organized incorporated territory of the United States from shortly after annexation in 1898 and thus legally part of the U.S. Anyone born there after the territorial government was established in 1900 would be a natural born citizen.
It is my impression that US embassies have wide leeway in their decision to grant CRBA based on people’s personal experiences shared on message boards(unless you believe they’re making shit up). For instance I can find posts where someone lost all documentation of their US residency(the five year period) and after interview the requirement was waived.
Which makes some people’s insistance that should baby Barack have been born abroad his mothers age would have prevented derivative transmission and what exactly? His mother must now try to immigrate to whereever her son was born so she can raise him? I have little faith in government but I do think that would be unlikely.
I doubt there was much difficulty getting US citizenship for babies born to US resident parents who happened to be out of the country and too young to automatically pass on citizenship. But then those babies would not have been “natural born” citizens. That is the issue, not citizenship.
This makes sense. If I was automatically considered a citizen of every country from which I had any ancestry, I would easily have 4 or 5 citizenships just based on my known ancestry. Would it really make sense for, say, Germany to say that because most white people in the US have some German ancestry that they are ALL German Citizens? It doesn’t make practical sense.
