Anti-Birther’s Cove

Answer From Sage:
Obama released his Hawaii birth certificate in June 2008 and almost immediately birthers claimed that it was a forgery. These “experts” never saw or handled the original BC, but instead used a jpeg of a scanned document to do their analysis. Anyone who has ever worked with a scanner and photos knows that a scanner only picks up a certain amount of details, depending on the quality of the original, and the quality of the scanner. Nobody who has actually seen the original has deemed it a fake.

As for the “long form” birth certificate, an official of the State of Hawaii has certified that the form is in the vault and the short form is an accurate representation of the long form.
“Our Certificate of Live Birth is the standard form, which was modeled after national standards that are acceptable by federal agencies and organizations,” Okubo told the Honolulu Advertiser. “With that form, you can get your passport or your soccer registration or your driver’s license.”

I daresay most of us do not possess our long form birth certificate – I know I don’t. And in fact the form with footprints etc. are actually a keepsake, not a legal copy.. The shorter version is accepted as proof of citizenship by federal and state agencies:

“Often, people don’t realize that what they consider their official birth certificate is not actually a legal document. The copy given to new parents at the hospital, sometimes with the baby’s footprints on it, is meant to be a cherished keepsake but is not valid for official proof of identity. Your original birth certificate must remain on file at the designated vital records agency office of your birth place after being submitted for registration by the attending hospital. This is where the only “original” copy of your birth record is located. This version is kept under lock and key and most people will never see their original. This is done to help ensure your identity is protected. For purposes of official business you’ll want to obtain a certified (raised seal) birth certificate from the department of public health or vital records office where the birth took place. This is also often described as an “official” copy.”
(from Article Base)

On July 28, 2009 Fox News ran the following story:
“State officials in Hawaii on Monday said they have once again checked and confirmed that President Barack Obama was born in Hawaii and is a natural-born American citizen, and therefore meets a key constitutional requirement for being president.”

Answer From Sage:
Remember, the release of his Certificate of Live Birth that kicked off all of the forgery claims. Why would Obama open up that can of worms again? Can anyone who questions the birth certificate he already has posted online honestly say they would accept a long form birth certificate posted online as genuine? I think that if we are being honest, we know that another birth certificate being released would simply start the process all over again.

Why should the President of the United States continue to give credence to a conspiracy theory? He released the birth certificate that is considered proof of citizenship already. If that is good enough to satisfy federal and state agencies, then it should be good enough for the Internet “experts”.

Answer from Daily KOS
Recently, World Net Daily released what they claimed to be the birth certificate of President Obama, and it was from Kenya. Almost immediately, people on the Internet were able to show that the certificate was clearly a falsehood:

“First, the hospital is Coast Provincial General Hospital (sometimes said to be Coast Province General Hospital), not Coast General Hospital.
Second, Kenya was a Dominion the date this certificate was allegedly issued and would not become a republic for 8 months.
Third, Mombasa belonged to Zanzibar when Obama was born, not Kenya.
Fourth, Obama’s father’s village would be nearer to Nairobi, not Mombasa.
Fifth, the number 47O44– 47 is Obama’s age when he became president, followed by the letter O (not a zero) followed by 44–he is the 44th president.
Sixth, EF Lavender is a laundry detergent.
Seventh, would a nation with a large number of Muslims actually say “Christian name” (as opposed to name) on the birth certificate?
Eighth, his father (born in 1961) would have been 24 or 25 when he was born and not 26.
Ninth, it was called the “Central Nyanza District,” not Nyanza Province. The regions were changed to provinces in 1970.”

While these are just some of the things that throw the certificate into question, there are dozens more little details that cause one to wonder on the legitimacy of this claimed Kenyan certificate. Clearly, the Birth Certificate from WND is a fake.

Answer From Barga
World Net Daily has recently claimed that a newspaper from Ghana indicates that Africa is the continent of Obama’s birth. Looking at this, you must remember how African’s consider their heritage and nationality, and how literal reading does not work in this story. Africans consider their heritage to be the birthplace of their fathers, as that is how their tribal system works. They are saying that Obama is of the tribe in Kenya, not was literally born there.

Answer From Barga
On August 4, 1961, the Honolulu Advertiser and the Star Bulletin both contained an announcement stating that Barack Obama had been born. Many birthers have claimed that this announcement is either false, or was planned to mislead us. This is an interesting claim, as it requires the assumption that there is a 40+ year-old conspiracy afoot just to get Obama elected president. While we have no way of proving that the announcement was not, in fact, a scam, we are able to assume it was not. The concept of a conspiracy that large, specifically at a time when it was thought that blacks could NEVER become president, simply is outside the realm of logic. Anything of this sort is not only inconceivable, but illogical.

Answer from Washington Independent

Barack’s mom and maternal grandparents had a strong incentive to create a paper trail documenting Obama as a US citizen back in 1961 and it had nothing to do with assuring his future viability as a Presidential candidate. All they needed to do was imagine a day when the white Ms. Dunham would be engaged in a custody fight in a Kenyan court contesting the fate of a black Kenyan baby sought by the black Kenyan father and his African family, and their course would have been clear.

The problem with this? Parents and relatives don’t, and didn’t, get to place birth announcements in the Honolulu Advertiser or the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. As a Star-Bulletin employee explained to WorldNetDaily, the editors “print what we receive from the Department of Health Vital Statistics System,” and did so in 1961. And the Advertiser worked the same way.

Answer from Roberta in Columbus
When we are looking at the citizenship of a person in America, we must look at Title 8 of the US Code. This section of US law provides us with the qualifications of being born a citizen of America, and thus the qualifications to be eligible for the Presidency. The first and foremost section in this law clearly states that

a person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof

is an automatic citizen of the United States at birth. Clearly, if Obama was born in Hawaii, he is a citizen, regardless of the status of his father.

Answer from Roberta in Columbus
While we already know that if Obama was born in Hawaii, he would be an automatic citizen, he would also be one if he was born outside of the country. When we are looking at the citizenship of a person in America, we must look at Title 8 of the US Code. This section of US law provides us with the qualifications of being born a citizen of America, and thus the qualifications to be eligible for the Presidency.

Title 8, in section G, clearly states that a person

born outside the geographical limits of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is an alien, and the other a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, was physically present in the United States or its outlying possessions for a period or periods totaling not less than five years, at least two of which were after attaining the age of fourteen years

.
Obama’s mother clearly met these qualifications, and thus her son would be a natural born citizen, regardless of where he was born.
(note, the Immigration and Nationality Corrections Act of 1994 makes the new law retroactive to 1951 and later).

Answer from Barga
While there is no evidence that Obama ever gave up his citizenship, nor that he became a Citizen of Indonesia, this is a common argument against his eligibility. However, just because it is common, does not mean that it is well thought out.

1) The United States will not recognize a parent giving up their child’s citizenship – rather, the child, once they are 18, will go and renounce their citizenship themselves. This means that the adoption by Soetero could not have cost Obama his citizenship.

2) This would be considered administrative between a private party and the Government of Indonesia, and the US Government would not have recognized it until he was 18 and requested it himself – he clearly did not do this.

3) Even if Obama DID give up his citizenship, once he returned to the United States, and reclaimed it, he would still be eligible for President. Provided he remained in the US for 14 years as a resident, he would still have the right to seek the office of the Presidency.

Answer From Sage
There is a claim that there is an affidavit in which Obama’s “grandmother” Sarah Obama, said ‘I was present and saw him born in Mombasa, Kenya.’ It is NOT an affidavit read and signed by Sarah Obama, it is an affidavit from the interviewer who interviewed Sarah Obama through a translator over the telephone. There was a problem with the translation and the family corrected the misunderstanding stating that Obama was in fact born in Hawaii.

Here are the facts from WAR ROOM:

The affidavit was filed by a street preacher named Ron McRae, who conducted an interview with Sarah Obama, the second wife of President Obama’s grandfather, through a translator. (Sarah Obama is not the president’s biological grandmother, but he calls her “Granny Sarah.”)

In that interview, Sarah Obama does in fact say at one point that she was there for her grandson’s birth. But that was a mistake, a confusion in translation. As soon as a jubilant McRae began to press her for further details about her grandson being born in Kenya, the family realized the mistake and corrected him. And corrected him. And corrected him. (The audio is available for download here.)

No matter, though, because people who believe in a conspiracy theory simply hear what they want to hear. So some Birther sites have posted transcripts and YouTube clips that end abruptly with the mistranslation and don’t include the corrections.

Here’s the conversation:

MCRAE: Could I ask her about his actual birthplace? I would like to see his birthplace when I come to Kenya in December. Was she present when he was born in Kenya?

OGOMBE: Yes. She says, yes, she was, she was present when Obama was born.

MCRAE: When I come in December. I would like to come by the place, the hospital, where he was born. Could you tell me where he was born? Was he born in Mombasa?

OGOMBE: No, Obama was not born in Mombasa. He was born in America.

MCRAE: Whereabouts was he born? I thought he was born in Kenya.

OGOMBE: No, he was born in America, not in Mombasa.

MCRAE: Do you know where he was born? I thought he was born in Kenya. I was going to go by and see where he was born.

OGOMBE: Hawaii. Hawaii. Sir, she says he was born in Hawaii. In the state of Hawaii, where his father was also learning, there. The state of Hawaii.

Answer From Roberta in Columbus and Barga
This is perhaps one of the most interesting arguments that the birthers can make. The Naturalization Act of 1790 clearly indicates the manners in which a person can become a citizen of the United States. The last clause in the act is where the argument is – “Provided, that the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States”. This causes the arguments over the act to be interesting, and actually forces us to examine it closely. However, the problem with using this act is actually three-fold:

1) The act is not the US Constitution. Unless specified in the Constitution, an act of Congress can not define, alter, or remove any clause of the Constitution (see Marburry v. Madison). Thus, the act of 1790 does not alter our definition of Natural Born, and we can not use it.

2) The act is geared at the naturalization process, not at the definition of a US citizen. Until the passing of the 14th Amendment, all states defined citizenship on their own. Clearly, this act did not define citizenship from birth, merely the naturalization process.

3) If you look at the clause at hand, you notice that the phrase quoted above actually is amending a previous section. In fact, it is amending the rights of citizenship automatically granted to just-born persons OUTSIDE of the United States. If, according to the 1790 Act, you were born outside of the Country, you were a natural born if your father was a citizen. However, Obama was born in Hawaii, so this clause does not apply.

While this argument is interesting and informative, the claim about the 1790 Naturalization Act falls to the wayside, when you consider the above three conditions.

Answer from Barga
If the Founding Fathers intended only the children of male citizens to become president, then they would have clearly indicated as such in the Constitution. At the time of the writing, there were women citizens in various colonies, so this would not have been outside the realm of their thoughts. Without anything indicating this in the Constitution itself, we can not assume that this was their intent.

Answer From SageHow do we know it’s a forgery? Because in a lengthy article on the case, WorldNetDaily notes that it “has reported on an authentic 1961-era Kenyan birth certificate, which looks distinctly different from the document Smith released in the video. Both images can be seen HERE

Answer From Barga as a side point, the Birthers do not accept a certificate of birth from Hawaii, yet will accept this certificate of birth. This hypocrisy clearly shows their intentions of defrauding the nation.

Answer From Barga
To answer this question, we can break the submitted argument into two different statements – one that he is not a citizen as his parents were both not, and one where the court has ruled on this. The first argument is easy to see through, as Roberta, earlier on this very page, pointed out that Title 8 of the US Code clearly disagrees with this statement:

a person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof

This indicates that, if Obama was indeed born in Hawaii, he is a citizen, regardless of the status of his father.

The second argument, that the Supreme Court has ruled on this issue, is much harder to answer, but not because Ken is right. Rather, it is difficult to argue as he cited no cases, nor did he mention that the court has never ruled on the specificity of the phrase ‘natural-born.’ That said, however, we can look at several other SCOTUS cases where the court ruled that the parents were irrelevant when deciding the citizenship of their offspring.

The Supreme Court, in United States v. Wong Kim Ark 169 US 649 found that

…citizenship by birth is established by the mere fact of birth under the circumstances defined in the Constitution. Every person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, becomes at once a citizen of the United States, and needs no naturalization …

Not only did they find that a citizen is a citizen by mere birth in America, but they found this regarding a defendant who had two parents, neither of which were citizens. Clearly, the court disagrees with what Ken is saying.

Now, it is still arguable that if Obama’s father was British, Obama would not be under US Jurisdiction. This, thankfully, is also easy to see through, as the court also said, in a case memo:

The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution declares that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” This is simply an affirmance of the common law of England and of this country so far as it asserts the status of citizenship to be fixed by the place of nativity, irrespective of parentage. The qualification, “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” was probably intended to exclude the children of foreign ministers, and of other persons who may be within our territory with rights of extraterritoriality.”

It is clear from this that the court feels that, unless Obama’s father was indeed a diplomat, then Obama was born under US jurisdiction, and therefore is covered under the Constitutional requirements.

Frankly, it seems as though that, while this is a common Birther argument, the Supreme Court of the United States disagree with it. They have ruled that citizenship is extended, from birth, and naturally, to any person born within the jurisdiction of this nation, provided that they are not the offspring of a diplomat. Obama, as such, fits this description, and, therefore, is clearly a natural-born citizen, thus eligible to be President of the United Stated.