President James A. Garfield once said, “I love agitation and investigation and glory in defending unpopular truth against popular error.”
If Garfield were alive today he would glory in defending an unpopular truth… which is that Barack Hussein Obama is ineligible to serve as President of the United States… against popular error… which is the incomprehensible claim of sunshine patriots that it makes no difference whether or not Obama meets the “natural born” standard required under the U.S. Constitution.
So, in the Garfield tradition, let us defend an unpopular truth.
In a recent column titled, “Obama’s Dual Citizenship,” we examined the basis of the claim that Obama is not a “natural born” United States citizen, as required by Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution. To arrive at that conclusion it is first necessary to establish that Obama was born with dual citizenship.
Obama tells us that he was born in Honolulu, Hawaii on August 4, 1961 to Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., a citizen of Kenya, and Stanley Ann Dunham, an 18-year-old American girl. But, regardless of the place of his birth (some insist that he was born in Kenya), the fact that his parents were of diverse nationality… one Kenyan and one American… provides sufficient proof that, under all of the applicable law, U.S. and foreign, he started life with dual citizenship.
At the time of Obama’s birth, Kenya was a colony of the United Kingdom, therefore Obama’s father, having been born in Kenya, to Kenyan parents, was a British subject. So what does that mean for Obama?
Part 2, Section 5(1) of the British Nationality Act of 1948, reads, in part, as follows: “Subject to the provisions of this section, a person born after the commencement of this Act shall be a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies by descent if his father is a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies at the time of the birth…”
Obama’s father was a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies at the time of his birth. Therefore, under British Law and American law, Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. was born with British citizenship “by descent” from his father, and with American citizenship by descent from his mother.
However, Obama’s dual British-American citizenship was short lived. Following Kenya’s independence from Great Britain, Kenya’s newly-adopted Constitution went into effect on December 12, 1963, when Obama was two years and four months old. Chapter VI, Section 87[3] of the Kenyan Constitution, relating to citizenship, provides, in part, as follows:
“(1) Every persons who, having been born in Kenya, is on 11th December, 1963 a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies (Obama Sr.), or a British protected person, shall become a citizen of Kenya on 12th December 1963. Provided that a person shall not become a citizen of Kenya by virtue of this subsection if neither of his parents was born in Kenya. (Obama’s paternal grandparents were both born in Kenya)
“(2) Every person who, having been born outside Kenya, is on 11th December, 1963 a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies (Obama Jr.), or a British protected person, shall, if his father becomes, or would but for his death have become a citizen of Kenya by virtue of subsection (1), become a citizen of Kenya on 12th December, 1963.”
In other words, on December 12, 1963, Obama lost his dual US-British citizenship and became, instead, a dual citizen of the United States and Kenya. However, Kenyan dual citizenship had its limits. Chapter VI, Section 97 of the Kenyan Constitution provides as follows:
“(1) A person who, upon the attainment of the age of twenty-one years, is a citizen of Kenya and also a citizen of some country other than Kenya shall, subject to subsection (7), cease to be a citizen of Kenya upon the specified date unless he has renounced his citizenship of that other country, taken the oath of allegiance and, in the case of a person who was born outside Kenya, made and registered such declaration of his intentions concerning residence as may be prescribed by or under an Act of Parliament.”
Subsection (7), referenced above, gave the Kenyan parliament the option to provide a grace period during which dual citizens could make their election of nationality after reaching age twenty-one. Since Obama clearly did not renounce his U.S. citizenship during the grace period following his 21st birthday, The Rocky Mountain News has reported on September 3, 2009 that his Kenyan citizenship expired on August 4, 1984, his 23rd birthday.
However, having established that Obama was, in fact, born with dual US-British citizenship, and that he held dual US-Kenyan citizenship from the age of two until at least his twenty-first birthday, it now becomes necessary to answer the critics who assert that United States law does not recognize dual citizenship. Not true.
The official position of the Consular Affairs Division of the U.S. State Department is excerpted as follows:
“The concept of dual nationality means that a person is a citizen of two countries at the same time. Each country has its own citizenship laws based on its own policy. Persons may have dual nationality by automatic operation of different laws rather than by choice…
“U.S. law does not mention dual nationality or require a person to choose one citizenship or another. Also, a person who is automatically granted another citizenship does not risk losing U.S. citizenship. However, a person who acquires a foreign citizenship by applying for it may lose U.S. citizenship. In order to lose U.S. citizenship, the law requires that the person must apply for the foreign citizenship voluntarily, by free choice, and with the intention to give up U.S. citizenship…
“The U.S. Government recognizes that dual nationality exists but does not encourage it as a matter of policy because of the problems it may cause. Claims of other countries on dual national U.S. citizens may conflict with U.S. law…
“However, dual nationals owe allegiance to both the United States and the foreign country. They are required to obey the laws of both countries. Either country has the right to enforce its laws, particularly if the person later travels there. Most U.S. citizens, including dual nationals, must use a U.S. passport to enter and leave the United States. Dual nationals may also be required by the foreign country to use its passport to enter and leave that country…”
In analyzing the eligibility of Barack Obama to serve as President of the United States, the operative words in the U.S. State Department policy, the law of the land, are these:
- Dual nationals owe allegiance to both the United States and the foreign country. They are required to obey the laws of both countries.
- The U.S. Government recognizes that dual nationality exists but does not encourage it as a matter of policy because of the problems it may cause.
- Claims of other countries on dual national U.S. citizens may conflict with U.S. law.
These are precisely the reasons why the Founding Fathers included the words “natural born” when drafting the words of Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution.
When the Founding Fathers agreed to the basic qualifications of the individual who would serve as the Chief Magistrate of our nation… that he be at least thirty-five years of age and a natural born citizen of the United States…, the death and destruction of the War of Independence from Great Britain and from the tyranny of the British crown was still fresh in their minds. They knew well the dangers of having a commander in chief with divided loyalties and they specifically prohibited such a person from serving.
However, in 2008, a coalition of voters… blacks who would have voted for any black man, even Willie Horton or O.J. Simpson, merely because he was black; young white liberals who paid no attention to who he was or what he stood for, but who thought it would be “cool” to have a “hip” black president; and other white Democrat partisans who would do anything or say anything just to regain power… have given us a leader who is not only sublimely naïve, totally inexperienced and unqualified, and grossly inadequate, but clearly ineligible.
How we will ever extricate ourselves from this dilemma is unclear. Obama is well on his way to becoming a colossal failure as a president… the greatest failure in American history… and there is nothing we can do to prevent that. The sad part is, for Obama to fail the country must also fail. It is a Hobson’s Choice if ever there was one. But if we are to continue to lay claim to being a nation of laws, not of men, then we must find a way within the law to remove him.
As for me, I’m like President Garfield. I love my country, I love agitation and investigation, and I glory in defending unpopular truth against popular error. That’s why I have no fear in saying that, under the controlling legal authority of the United States, Great Britain, and Kenya, Barack Obama is NOT eligible to serve as President of the United States.
He should resign his office while we still have a fighting chance to save our nation.