Except Wong Kim Ark petitioned the court as a NATIVE born citizen, not a natural born one.
he departed for China on a temporary visit and with the intention of returning to the United States, and did return thereto by sea in the same year, and was permitted by the collector of customs to enter the United States upon the sole ground that he was a native-born citizen of the United States.
Wong Kim Ark
Even the Judge issuing the decision made the distinction between native and natural born:
The right of citizenship never descends in the legal sense, either by the common law or under the common naturalization acts. It is incident to birth in the country, or it is given personally by statute. The child of an alien, 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.(p666)
Saying he was 'just as much a citizen' as a natural born one doesn't mean he was saying Wong Kim WAS a natural born citizen.
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People commonly try to draw parallels between the Ark case and Obama to try to prove he is natural born, but a simple reading of the actual case can prove otherwise.
Wong Kim's parents petitioned to become citizens before Wong's birth, but the Emperor wouldn't release them from their Chinese citizenship. Obama, on the other hand, had a mother that was to young to confer citizenship and a father here on a temporary student visa.
Wong Kim never claimed to be anything OTHER than a US citizen at birth.
Obama has not one, but TWO possible citizenships, and both are foreign to the United States.
From what I’ve read, at this time he’s probably not a citizen of any country.
He’s apparently lost or renounced his citizenship in any country he was ever a citizen of.
There appear to be Obama supporters who come to Obama’s defense on FR on the ‘natural born’ issue with weak court cases which are not ON POINT on whether Obama will meet the Constitutional requirement of being a natural born citizen of the US.
Thanks for pointing this out as so many people get this Wong Kim Ark case all wrong.....or only take pieces parts that fit their needs/thinking/arguments....etc...
Mario has done great work on the WKA case.
WKA was about citizenship. The winning side used the NBC clause to show that WKA met the criteria, and thus was a citizen, since a NBC must also be a citizen. That was half the decision.
You can ignore that half if you wish, but no court will.
“Obama, on the other hand, had a mother that was to young to confer citizenship...”
That is so grossly far from the truth that it is embarrassing. There is no age requirement for mothers giving birth in the USA for citizenship. What we had was an American citizen, giving birth in Hawaii, with a father who was here legally for some years, and who abandoned the mother and baby about the time the baby was born - and you claim the baby received UK citizenship thru the father...not even close.
“It thus clearly appears that, by the law of England for the last three centuries, beginning before the settlement of this country and continuing to the present day, aliens, while residing in the dominions possessed by the Crown of England, were within the allegiance, the obedience, the faith or loyalty, the protection, the power, the jurisdiction of the English Sovereign, and therefore every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign State or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born.
III. The same rule was in force in all the English Colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established...
...Mr. Justice Thompson, speaking for the majority of the court, said:
It is universally admitted, both in the English courts and in those of our own country, that all persons born within the Colonies of North America, whilst subject to the Crown of Great Britain, are natural-born British subjects...
...Nothing is better settled at the common law than the doctrine that the children, even of aliens, born in a country while the parents are resident there under the protection of the government and owing a temporary allegiance thereto, are subjects by birth...
...That all children born within the dominion of the United States of foreign parents holding no diplomatic office became citizens at the time of their birth does not appear to have been contested or doubted until more than fifty years after the adoption of the Constitution...”
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0169_0649_ZO.html
You should also know that native citizen and natural born citizen were often used interchangeably:
“As the President is required to be a native citizen of the United States…. Natives are all persons born within the jurisdiction and allegiance of the United States.”
James Kent, COMMENTARIES ON AMERICAN LAW (1826)
“That provision in the constitution which requires that the president shall be a native-born citizen (unless he were a citizen of the United States when the constitution was adopted) is a happy means of security against foreign influence,…A very respectable political writer makes the following pertinent remarks upon this subject. “Prior to the adoption of the constitution, the people inhabiting the different states might be divided into two classes: natural born citizens, or those born within the state, and aliens, or such as were born out of it.”
St. George Tucker, BLACKSTONE’S COMMENTARIES (1803)