Obama is the Seventh President with a Foreign-born Parent

Obama is enduring the controversy that won’t die: according to the Queen of the Birthers, Orly Taitz, President Obama’s election is invalid since he has a foreign-born parent. John McCain also had to endure a fight for legitimacy when it came to whether or not he was eligible for the presidency. The Senate passed a resolution declaring him eligible, and though that resolution was non-binding, it never-the-less silenced the majority of his detractors.

So what happened with President Obama? Is he the only president to have a foreign-born parent?

He is the seventh president with at least one foreign-born parent. It has been 90 years since the last: Woodrow Wilson’s mother was English.

Before Wilson, came Herbert Hoover with a Canadian-born mother.

Chester Arthur and James Buchanan both had Irish fathers. Thomas Jefferson’s mother was born in England, and Andrew Jackson’s parents were both born in Ireland.

Along with McCain, presidential contender Mitt Romney’s father was born in Mexico, and Bill Richardson’s parents were both foreign-born, his father from Nicaragua and his mother from Mexico.

And why are all of these people eligible for the presidency of the United States? Because the Supreme Court, after citing many, many precedents, ultimately decided in US v. WONG KIM ARK (1898) that the 14th Amendment guaranteed citizenship to all persons born in the United States, regardless of their ethnic heritage:

The foregoing considerations and authorities irresistibly lead us to these conclusions: The fourteenth amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and under the protection of the country, including all children here born of resident aliens, with the exceptions or qualifications (as old as the rule itself) of children of foreign sovereigns or their ministers, or born on foreign public ships, or of enemies within and during a hostile occupation of part of our territory, and with the single additional exception of children of members of the Indian tribes owing direct allegiance to their several tribes. The amendment, in clear words and in manifest intent, includes the children born within the territory of the United States of all other persons, of whatever race or color, domiciled within the United States. Every citizen or subject of another country, while domiciled here, is within the allegiance and the protection, and consequently subject to the jurisdiction, of the United States. His allegiance to the United States is direct and immediate, and, although but local and temporary, continuing only so long as he remains within our territory, is yet, in the words of Lord Coke in Calvin’s Case, 7 Coke, 6a, ’strong enough to make a natural subject, for, if he hath issue here, that issue is a natural-born subject’; and his child, as said by Mr. Binney in his essay before quoted, ‘If born in the country, is as much a citizen as the natural-born child of a citizen, and by operation of the same principle.’

And further,

To hold that the fourteenth amendment of the constitution excludes from citizenship the children born in the United States of citizens or subjects of other countries, would be to deny citizenship to thousands of persons of English, Scotch, Irish, German, or other European parentage, who have always been considered and treated as citizens of the United States.

President Obama is a US citizen. So were six presidents before him. You can believe the Supreme Court or you can believe the Queen Bee of the Birther movement, Orly Taitz, who claims that “in order to be the president and commander in chief he has to be a natural born citizen, so even if he were to be born in Hawaii, he cannot be the president and commander in chief specifically because of his multiple citizenship.”

My money’s on the Supreme Court, but hey, if Orly’s your thing, have at it. She’s **rock solid** for sure!! I’d believe her over the Supreme Court any day!

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July 30, 2009 | Filed Under Perfect World 

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One Response to “Obama is the Seventh President with a Foreign-born Parent”

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