Obama not born in U.S.

Well, the issue of Obama's "natural born citizen" status due to his birth in the occupied Hawaiian kingdom has made the AP wire, with this article in the Advertiser. It also made it into the International Herald Tribune!

Some Native Hawaiians think Hawai'i-born Barack Obama can't be president of the United States because he was born in an independent sovereign nation: the Kingdom of Hawai'i.

A few independence advocates claim that Hawai'i legally remains a country today, making Obama and hundreds of thousands of others born in the Islands over the past 50 years not "natural-born" citizens or eligible to be president.
[...]
"Obama was born in the Hawaiian kingdom," said Leon Siu, a Native Hawaiian and musician who brought up the issue in a column he wrote on a news Web site. "Not only was the overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom illegal, it was admitted to be illegal by the United States."

Siu was referring to the "apology resolution" passed by Congress in 1993 acknowledging wrongdoing in the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy 100 years before and recognizing the inherent sovereignty of the indigenous Islanders over their land.

I agree that technically Obama, like McCain, was not born in the United States. However, based on my research I think the most common interpretation of the "natural born citizen" clause for presidential eligibility is that if someone is born as a citizen, whether by place (jus soli) or parentage (jus sanguinis), as opposed to being naturalized, they are considered natural-born. So Obama would be a citizen because his mother was, regardless of where he was born or whether Hawaii was legally part of the U.S. Several previous posts here address various aspects of this issue.

Regardless, I agree with Leon's last line in the article, "I don't think it's going to affect the election at all, though." Still, I give him credit for using it as an opportunity to raise the issue of Hawaii's status.

BTW, the Apology is only piece in a large body of evidence, and it isn't really about the "inherent sovereignty of the indigenous Islanders." For a comprehensive analysis of the arguments for why the United States never legally acquired Hawaii, see American Occupation of the Hawaiian State: A Century Unchecked by David Keanu Sai in the Hawaiian Journal of Law and Politics, Volume 1 (Summer 2004).

Posted: Thu - March 13, 2008 at 10:34 AM

getBlogName(); > getCategoryName("C1126750129"); >

Obama not born in U.S.

> >