Birth records get murky when adoption involved

One of the little-explored issues in the controversy over Barack Obama's eligibility to be president under the U.S. Constitution's demand for a "natural born" citizen is the impact of his move to Indonesia as a child.

WND has reported on multiple legal challenges to Obama's eligibility based on doubts he was born in the U.S. or was granted "natural born" citizenship at birth.

The legal challenges include contentions he was born in Kenya, wasn't a "natural born" citizen because of his father's Kenyan citizenship, that he was a dual citizen and that his mother wasn't old enough to transmit citizenship at birth.

Obama's citizenship is further clouded by his move as a child to Indonesia and apparent adoption by an Indonesian citizen who married his mother.

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Reports confirm Barack Obama Sr. was a Kenyan citizen who attended school in the U.S. and then returned to his country. He briefly was married to Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, in Hawaii. After Obama Sr. left, Dunham married Indonesian student Lolo Soetoro.

The family later moved to Indonesia.

Jerry Fuller and Mike Persons of the passport services division of the U.S. State Department say such a move for a child, coupled with the apparent adoption, could impact a child's birth certificate.

The changes might include the names of the parents on the birth certificate. Without a doubt, officials said, the result could be a dual citizenship.

It's possible Obama was a dual citizen through his Kenyan father or even his Indonesian stepfather.

The AP has reported Obama was listed as Barry Soetoro while attending school as a citizen of Indonesia, and his religion was listed as Islam.

The State Department officers confirmed that when an adoption of a child is involved, the law becomes murky quickly.

A child born of two U.S. residents overseas would be a U.S. citizen, but there are many other rules and provisions that apply when only one parent – as in Obama's case – is a U.S. citizen.

The law in the 1960s said an American mother couldn't transmit citizenship to a child unless she had lived 10 years in the U.S. including five after the age of 14. According to the State Department, that's similar to today's rule, which requires a mother to live two years after the age of 14 in the U.S.

One WND reader whose name is being withheld to protect his privacy reported that when he adopted his wife's daughter from a previous relationship in Asia and brought the family to the United States, he was given a "certificate of birth" from the state of Kansas for his daughter.

However, the document cites specifically, "This Certificate is not evidence of United States Citizenship."

He said the family still has the girl's original birth certificate from outside the United States.

In adoptions within the United States, new birth certificates routinely are granted citing the adopting parents as biological mother and father, even though there is no blood relationship.

WND has reported on dozens of legal challenges to Obama's status as a "natural born citizen." The Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, states, "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."

Some of the challenges to Obama's presidency contend the framers of the Constitution excluded dual citizens from qualifying as natural born.

Complicating the situation is Obama's decision to spend sums estimated in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to fight cases seeking the release of a state birth certificate that would put the questions to rest .