He's a Liar and an Idiot, not a Kenyan Citizen

The Rocky Mountain News indicated that Barack Obama is Kenyan citizen. He may not be. Under Kenya's Citizenship code, he certainly has the right to citizenship by virtue of having one Kenyan parent, but must register as an adult and would have to forswear his US citizenship.

On the other side of the coin, US law doesn't exclude legal dual nationality under Kenyan law, but it doesn't encourage or provide for it. But US law would only figure into the legality of maintaining a second nationality under US jurisdiction, and it doesn't encourage or forbid it. However, Kenyan law DOES carry exclusionary language.

Let's assume for a moment that Barack Obama IS a Kenyan citizen. After all, the code itself assumes that a minor's registration, a term not limited to a specific act of petitioning citizenship, puts in force those assumption of those that apply to a petitioner at the age of majority if it's done by the parents. That implies that a registration of birth is a registration of citizenship if the conditions of the code are met.

As an aside is something rather chilling. Considering that there are Kenyans of European and Indian heritage, this includes a requirement that one parent must be of African heritage. Should that be interpreted narrowly, it could exclude a number of Kenyans.

But back to what it means to say that what's true for an adult is true for a minor child if registered by a parent:

(2) A person shall not be registered as a citizen of Kenya under this section unless and until he has made a declaration in writing in the prescribed form of his willingness to renounce any other nationality or citizenship he may posses and to take an oath of allegiance in the form specified in the First schedule.

The parent would be the party required to elect to act in that case. Therefore under Kenyan law, if BHO is a Kenyan citizen, he may not be a US citizen. That doesn't mean that the US has to respect the condition, but they nominally are when there isn't something specifically contradicting the clause under the law of the other country – which is the US in this case.

So where does that leave someone wondering what the democratic party's presumptive nominee's citizenship really is? Assuming that he didn't actively disavow his Kenyan citizenship, and had his birth registered in Kenya, he cannot NOT be a Kenyan citizen under Kenyan law. However the recognition of US citizenship is a function of US law, which at the time of his birth accepted that if one does not demonstrate an act of citizenship under the other country's law, (such as getting a passport or voting,) that it's passively disavowed.

Therefore in the US he is a US citizen. Barring renunciation of Kenyan citizenship, he's a Kenyan when on Kenyan territory. Inasmuch as a Senator has a form of diplomatic immunity in a country with whom the United States has normalized relations which would make any sort of disputed claim moot anyway, he can now no longer be required to renounce his US citizenship in Kenya in order to remain in good legal standing if challenged to do so under Kenyan authority.

This is where he demonstrates his idiocy: since we don't know if he's renounced Kenyan citizenship, he did travel there prior to becoming Senator. If challenged, he would have been in violation of Kenyan law. Here's a second chill: just as we find with the law requiring registration under Kenyan law, it's applicable when compelled by a ministry. Were there a Kenyan birth certificate, the idea that it's applicability to a citizenship which one would later want to renounce could simply be annulled.

Where any person who, not being able to renounce his citizenship of some other country, is registered as a citizen of Kenya after making the declaration prescribed by section II, and is, thereafter, able to renounce such first mentioned citizenship, the Minister may require him to renounce such first-mentioned citizenship; and if such person fails to do so, within the period (not being less than twenty-eight days) specified by the Minister his registration may be cancelled.

May. In other words, “or may not”. This would require something diplomatically awkward to take place in that it requires an action which for many reasons couldn't remain private: should Kenya declare him a citizen, legal niceties, “global good citizenship” and all that, would require the US to ask Kenya to accept a public renunciation of citizenship, one that they're entitled to turn down, by the President of the United States. Since the present government doesn't exactly care for Senator Obama, who knows? We could find ourselves in the middle of some nutty African publicity stunt politicking before we know it.

To get back to the title, just what is it that makes him a liar? Omission. He hasn't been the least bit forthcoming when it comes to comforting anyone with actual information about just what it is that his foreign connections could do to turn a term of presidency into an embarrassing set of distractions that he would be compelled to address and at some point have to indulge. Anyone worried about a royal presidency should be more worried about a trashy seeming and pedestrian one. Our lauded magical imaginary restoration of lost citizenship of the world will be reduced to being citizens of page 6 mockery.