We already did. When the Governator was born, Austria was part of Allied Occupied territories. Thus it’s only a slight stretch from McCain.
Write the law so you award citizenship to any Austrian from the time that applies for it? That might work.
Dems are pro-immigrant and Repubs are pro-white immigrants, it’s a win/win no matter how many end up with citizenship.
Other than her being dead, of course.
But since we’re playing Fantasy Politics here, I have to ask:
What federal crime would she have been committing, in falsifying a Hawaii state birth record? Might be a state crime, but how would it be a federal crime? If no federal crime, he would have no power to pardon her.
There’s probably a statute of limitations issue too, right?
I don’t think it would matter if Obama’s mother birthed him in Kenya. As long as *she *was a US citizen at the time, HE becomes a US citizen regardless of where he was born.
Ninja’d by a few hours. Some point out that under the law at the time, she was too young to pass on her citizenship as she did not live in the US the requisite amount of time. But what the neglect to mention is under that law, a child born out of wedlock receives the mother’s citizenship - done, period, end of discussion.
But wait, she was married to Obama’s dad. Not legally. He was still married to his first wife (unknown to her IIRC) and since it was bigamous, the marriage would not be recognized the the Feds or any US state and so she was legally unmarried at the time Barack was born.
Of course we need to neglect the fact that McCain’s parents were American and Schwarzenegger’s were not so it’s actually a long stretch.
True,
but that relects on Citizenship as opposed to “natural born”. The issue of Obama’s mother also related to citizenship as opposed to “natural born”. fact is, we don’t know what "natural born’ means, legally. It’s never really been tested.
No, we just retroactively declare that it was US territory at the time. Anybody born “in the US” is a citizen by birth (some exceptions apply).
I see this thread as being better suitedto IMHO rather than General questions.
Moved.
samclem, moderator
No. Congress could do pretty much whatever they wanted in that case.
Cite? :dubious:
Per the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (PDF link BIG FILE!) no child born abroad of one US citizen and one alien parent can automatically receive US citizenship without the US citizen parent having met the requisite residency requirements in the United States.
Obama’s mother had not met the US residency requirements at the time of Barack’s birth as she had not lived in the United States for 5 years after the age of 14. If she hypothetically had given birth to Barack abroad then he would not be a US citizen.
See section 309©, on pp. 238-239. Residency requirement for the parent of a child born out of wedlock is just one year.
However, that assumes that the marriage was non-existent. Normally, if a person enters into a marriage in good faith, without knowing of an impediment to the marriage by the other person, the marriage is considered voidable, but not void - i.e. - the innocent party is considered lawfully married, notwithstanding the impediment.
It doesn’t have to be an offense. The House could impeach, solely on the grounds that Obama was constitutionally ineligible. That’s plenty.
The constitution does say “high crimes and misdemeanors,” but “not being qualified” could, itself, be interpreted to be a constitutional misdemeanor. The House of Representatives doesn’t have any stricter guidelines than their own interpretation.
In this scenario, however, where Obama is as much a victim as everyone else, I don’t think the Senate would ever muster 2/3 for conviction. If Obama were shown to have been lying, then, yeah, maybe.
Pardons can be posthumous.
And is it a crime to submit false reports to local newspapers’ birth announcement columns?
Well, she would have had to have smuggled young Barack back into the country from Kenya. If she submitted the fake birth certificate in order to obtain a passport for him, that could be some sort of crime. To be more precise, if she participated in some conspiracy to generate a falsified birth certificate for the purpose of using it to import an illegal alien, there could be some sort of catch-all violation. Even if she didn’t get a passport, she must have done something illegal to get him back into the country.
Arnold was born near Graz, which was in the British Zone of Occupation, not the American Zone.
darn it Colibri, what are you doing, cluttering up a nice Fantasy Politics™ thread with ugly little facts?!? 
And really, shouldn’t this thread be in the Café Society, along with all the other game threads?
Right, which is why I said Allied. But all of the Western Allies had understandings etc, it was just about all one zone for all purposes.
The Mace of the House would be taken up and a cavalry charge of current Republican members of Congress who were combat veterans would ride on unicorns down Pennsylvania and reason with Obama until the sun rose in the West.