Qualified to be President?

Correction: edited in 7:49 am 11/7/08: DOH! Sure I did research on President elect Obama's birth and came across the interesting tidbits about requirements to be a US citizen, and that he didn't meet them. However it seems that I missed a line in my reading that stated that those qualifications only counted for children of a US citizen who was born OUTSIDE the US. President-elect Obama was born in Hawaii 2 years after it became a state so even if neither of his parents were citizens and arrived while his mother was in labor he would have been a US citizen. End correction.



I'm surprised no one has brought this up yet, but in doing some research for my last entry I came across a few interesting facts.

First that to be qualified to be President of the United States you have to be a Natural-born citizen.

Second, from my research (and I could/probably am wrong) President Elect Obama isn't a Natural-born citizen, he's a naturalized citizen.

According to Findlaw.com from Dec 24, 1952 until Nov 13, 1986, which encompass the time that Obama was born, "If only one parent was a U.S. citizen at the time of your birth, that parent must have resided in the United States for at least 10 years, at least five of which had to be after the age of 16." After Nov 13, 1986 anyone born on US shores who's parents requested it was considered to hold dual-citizenship as their parents country and the USA. I've not found anywhere that states this was made retroactive.

Obama's father has never been a citizen of the USA and his mother was 18 when Barrack was born. This means that Obama couldn't be considered a natural born citizen because his mother wasn't 21 (16 + 5 = 21) the minimum age a mother can give birth to a citizen, thus preventing him from being a legal candidate for the Presidential office. This is also what has prevented the current Governor of CA from running for the office.

Let me make it clear, I don't want to escape President-Elect Obama on a technicality, but if it was unconstitutional for him to run and he ran anyway what is he going to do for illegal immigrants who started their life in America by breaking the law?