Analysis: As stated above, Article II of the
U.S. Constitution indeed specifies that only natural-born citizens are eligible for the office of the presidency:
No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
Though the term "natural-born citizen" was left undefined by the Framers of the Constitution, it was broadly understood in English common law at the time as referring to one who possesses citizenship by virtue of the circumstances of their birth. That's still the general meaning of the phrase as it's used today.
In the United States there are two established principles upon which individuals are said to acquire citizenship at birth:
jus sanguinus ("right of blood"), meaning citizenship conferred by being born to parents who are U.S. citizens, and
jus soli ("right of soil"), meaning citizenship conferred by being born on U.S. soil. Per the Fourteenth Amendment, which states that "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside," individuals born on U.S. soil are considered "birthright citizens" regardless of the citizenship status of their parents.
Citizenship status of Barack Obama's parents
The forwarded email asserts that because Obama's Kenyan father wasn't a U.S. citizen, and because his mother, who was a citizen, didn't fulfill the supposed legal requirement of "resid[ing] in the United States for at least ten years, at least five of which had to be after the age of 16," Obama himself was therefore not a citizen at birth.
That is false on two counts:
- Obama was born on U.S. soil — in Honolulu, Hawaii — and was therefore a citizen at birth by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment (and the principle of jus soli).
- The stated residency requirement, in effect between 1952 and 1986, applied only to parents of individuals born outside the United States.
Therefore Barack Obama is, in fact, a U.S. citizen. But some still argue that he is not a
natural-born citizen. The reasons have to do with the disputed meaning of the term "natural born" itself.
'Natural born' vs. 'native born'
In lawsuits challenging Obama's Constitutional eligibility it has been argued that while birth on U.S. soil confers "birthright" or "native-born" citizenship, it does not confer
natural-born citizenship unless
both parents are also U.S. citizens. Citing precedents they claim establish the Framers' intent to disqualify individuals who could possess dual nationality or dual allegiance by virtue of having a foreign national for a parent, these litigants assert that such an individual ought not to be regarded as a natural-born citizen eligible to hold the office of the presidency (see Leo D'Onofrio, "
Why Obama Is Ineligible - Regardless of His Birthplace").
The distinction between "natural born" and "native born" is not universally accepted by Constitutional scholars as a crucial one, however. Short of a Supreme Court decision or legislative statute settling the matter, it remains but one way of interpreting a longstanding
legal ambiguity concerning the eligibility clause. There are other interpretations, most notably that found in an
analysis of Republican presidential candidate John McCain's standing as a natural-born citizen conducted by former U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson and Constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe in 2008. In their view, "based on the original meaning of the Constitution, the Framers' intentions, and subsequent legal precedent,"
either the fact of birth on U.S. soil
or the fact of birth to parents who are U.S. citizens is independently sufficient to confer natural born status.
