(11-08-2015 09:35 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(11-08-2015 04:12 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Yes, there was a technicality, Obama's mother did not fulfill all of the requirements of the statute in force at the time to convey American citizenship,

sure, it's a moot point, and I always considered Obama to be American and eligible to be President through his mother's citizenship, regardless, but now I wonder, what were the technicalities she didn't fulfill at the time?

IIRC (and I'm too lazy to look it up because it really doesn't matter) the law at the time required her to be age 18 and to have lived in the US for so many consecutive months prior to the date of birth, and I think she had lived overseas too recently to meet the months requirement. Or maybe she was under 18 when he was born and the law required so many months if the parent was under 18. Or maybe it was 48 consecutive months after turning 14 and it had not quite been 48 months since she got back from overseas. Something like that, now that my memory has been jogged, I think it was the latter. Whatever the provision, it was later repealed, and I have very little doubt that any court would simply have applied the repeal retroactively and been done with it.