Actually, the issue is that no one knows what “natural born” really means. The founding fathers didn’t really explain it and no courts have ever tackled the issue. Constitutional scholars are debating whether it may be possible for two parents from the US to go on vacation and have a kid who would be a US citizen, but not a “natural born” US citizen. There is a lot of debate about McCain, who is absolutely a US citizen, but who was born in the Panama Canal Zone.
weird. I too have never heard of this “long form” birth certificate. My birth certificate is a page long, has both my parents’ names on it, but doesn’t even have my blood type or anything (stupid Ohio…) It’s worked for all my purposes, though, like applying for a Japanese work visa and everything
Does ANY state put blood type on their birth certificates? My California birth certificate doesn’t. (I didn’t know what my blood type was until I gave blood for the first time and the blood bank started harrassing me for my sweet, sweet Type O.)
OTOH, mine doesn’t look much like Obama’s. It has both of my parents’ names and their places of birth on it. Maybe that’s the “long form”? It isn’t very long, though.
This is the key point to all this discussion. Even if the crazees are right, and Obama’s mother decided, for no apparent reason, to sneak overseas, give birth to him there, smuggle him back into the country, fake a birth certificate, and cover the whole thing up for 50 years, then result is that Obama is EXACLTY AS INELIGIBLE AS MCCAIN, no more no less.
The constitutional implicatations of being born overseas to one US parent, are the same as being born overseas to two US parents (except for extra stilpulations regarding residency, which Obama’s mother easily meets). So if Obama being born overseas stops him being a Natural Born Citizen, then neither is McCain, and I guess we have a run-off between Bob Barr and Ralph Nader.
The mother one of my best friends from high school was named Stanley.
Yeah, it’s weird, but there are a few other female Stanleys out there.
whoa, hold on a minute. mccain’s dad was in the navy, wouldn’t he have been born on a base in panama? established bases are considered u.s. territory rather like an embassy. if i remember properly, until pres. carter returned the canal to panama, the canal and a zone around it were considered u.s. territory.
I am too lazy to offer a cite, but while I was at the US embassy here in Toronto renewing my son’s passport, I heard the clerk there explaining this to an American woman who had moved to Toronto when she was quite young; she was trying to find out about American citizenship status for her high school aged child, and seemed to be unsure how she could substantiate her time in the States. This certainly does not make it true (I could be lying, or the clerk could be lying or mistaken), but “it’s ridiculous” doesn’t really apply well to immigration law, either.
I’ll see if I can dig up a cite if no one more knowledgeable comes along.
You remember properly; the Canal Zone was U.S. territory.
Now I see the problem - every instance of this law being quoted anywhere in the world are asserting that Obama is not eligible to be president. I have no opinion on that (Hawaii was a state, so I suspect that part of the law is being misquoted); I merely believe that it is possible that such a law did exist.
It doesn’t make any difference. At least one of his parents was an American citizen. He could have been born in the Kremlin and he would still be a natural born American citizen. Same for Obama.
My daughter was born in Hawaii and has the exact same form (except the names).
No, no, you misunderstand. They are seriously making the argument that Obama was born in Kenya, and that his mother was not eligible to pass on citizenship.
Now I’m off to the debate…
Really? I apologize for only skimming the postings I saw. that seems like an…odd assertion to make. At any rate, I reiterate that I am only commenting on whether such a law may have existed, not whether it would have been applicable in Obama’s case.
First bolded passage: Myth. US bases are NOT “US soil” for immigration and nationality purposes. The children of US servicemen/women and diplomatic personnel born while stationed overseas are citizens because the law says they are, not because their site is “US soil”. Naval Station Rota is Spanish soil, the US a tenant, a pregnant townie day-worker who unexpectedly enters labor and gives birth inside the base does NOT give birth to a US citizen, unlike someone in the same situation who crossed into San Diego from Tijuana.
Second bolded passage: Yes, though the extent to which “US soil” applied to the Canal Zone was specified by statute and was not exactly the same as for US home soil, but for many such purposes it applied. To further confuse things, the Inmigration and Nationality Acts were amended, rewritten, reenacted etc. several times over the 20th Century with changes in the terms and conditions of citizenship in the territories and abroad, so one would have to find exactly the statute that applied at that place and time, and THEN watch out for any later retroactive legislation affecting that person’s situation.
Good clarifying post. Minor nitpick: Naval Station Rota is Panamanian soil. People from Simon Bolivar to Manuel Noriega would be surprised to find that it still belonged to Spain.
Quick question: Puertoriqueños are considered “natural born U.S. citizens” are they not?
Good question. I should think Puerto Ricans are considered such; at least they are considered citizens, and can vote if they move to the mainland. (Or even Alaska or Hawaii.) Would the 14 years qualification kick in?
Spaniards will be astonished.
Pennsylvania uses short form certificates. I was born in PA, and I lost my long-form certificate years ago. I wrote to the bureau of records for a replacement, and they sent me a short form.
In fact, it looks remarkably like Obama’s certificate that has been causing so much consternation among certain elements. As soon as I saw it, I said to myself, “What’s the big deal? It looks just like MY birth certificate.”
Ed
The Panama Canal Zone was leased by the United States but still owned by Panama.
Wiki says: "Almost from the inception of the Canal Zone, questions arose as to whether the Zone was considered part of the United States for constitutional purposes, or, in the phrase of the day, whether the Constitution followed the flag. On July 28, 1904, Controller of the Treasury Robert Tracewell stated, "While the general spirit and purpose of the Constitution is applicable to the zone, that domain is not a part of the United States within the full meaning of the Constitution and laws of the country.[4]
In 1953, Congress passed legislation to specify the status of Americans born in the Canal Zone–and to exclude non-Americans born there from citizenship. Title 8, Section 1403 of the United States Code grants citizenship to those born in the Canal Zone with at least one parent who is a United States citizen. This differs from the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment which grants citizenship to all born in the United States, regardless of parental nationality."
That was 1953, and I assume it is the final word on newborns in the zone. But McCain was born in '36 (can’t remember if it was 1936 or 1836).
To clarify citizenship in the Panama Canal Zone, in 1937 congress enacted a law that said anyone born in the zone was retroactively “declared to be a citizen of the United States.” So, before McCain turned 1 year old, he was declared a genuine citizen. Buuuttt… he wasn’t delcared a naturally born citizen, which is required for the presidential office.
It shouldn’t really disqualify someone from being president. It’s surely in the Constitution to ensure that the president is a loyal American, but it makes for an interesting question.
Form n-600 from the I.N.S.
If you are the biological child of a U.S. citizen, you were born outside the United States and you are claiming citizenship by having been born to U.S. citizen paren(s), you automatically become a U.S. citizen at birth if:
You were born to two U.S. citizen parents and at least one of your parents had a residence in the United States or one if its outlying possessions. This residence had to have taken place prior to your birth; or
You were born to parents, one of whom is an alien and the other a U.S. citizen who, prior to your birth, had been physically present in the United States or one of its outlying possessions for a period or periods totaling not less than five years, at least two of which were after the age of 14 years.