You quoted Perkins v Elg and stated a parent cannot renounce the citizenship of a child. In this case, Elg’s father renounced his U.S. Citizenship after returning to his native country of Sweden.
After turning the age of majority, Elg requested a U.S. passport as a U.S. Citizen and received one. She returned to the U.S. and lived as a U.S Citizen. Later, she was denied a U.S. passport upon renewal application because the SoS had determined she was no longer a U.S. Citizen.
SCOTUS ruled the father’s renouncement of his U.S. Citizenship did not have effect on his child while she lived with him in Sweden. The U.S. SoS did not allege Elg was a dual citizen. Elg never claimed to be a citizen of Sweden. Elg could have been stateless if the SoS’s actions were upheld. Consequently, she maintained her U.S. Citizenship.
In Obama’s case, as with Terrazas, he was born in the U.S. with one U.S. Citizen parent and one foreign national parent. Both Obama and Terrazas were dual citizens at birth. All dual citizens are a risk of Loss of Nationality if they move out of the U.S. and participate in acts deemed to have renounced their U.S. Citizenship by a preponderance of the evidence as determined by the Secretary of State.
As opposed to Elg, where the SoS did not establish Elg was a dual citizen, the SoS did determine Terrazas and Obama were citizens of another country before the Certificate of Loss of Nationality was issued.
So where did Barack Obama Jr. around the age of 5 personally renounce his U.S. citizenship? Hawaii or Indonesia
“Miss Elg was born in Brooklyn, New York, on October 2, 1907. Her parents, who were natives of Sweden, emigrated to the United States sometime prior to 1906, and her father was naturalized here in that year. In 1911, her mother took her to Sweden, where she continued to reside until September 7, 1929. Her father went to Sweden in 1922, and has not since returned to the United States. In November, 1934, he made a statement before an American consul in Sweden that he had voluntarily expatriated himself for the reason that he did not desire to retain the status of an American citizen and wished to preserve his allegiance to Sweden.
In 1928, shortly before Miss Elg became twenty-one years of age, she inquired an American consul in Sweden about returning to the United States and was informed that, if she returned after attaining majority, she should seek an American passport. In 1929, within eight months after attaining majority, she obtained an American passport which was issued on the instructions of the Secretary of State. She then returned to the United States, was admitted as a citizen and has resided in this country ever since.”
That is a far more dramatic thing than Obama went thru in moving to Indonesia for a few years.
“The court below, properly recognizing the existence of an actual controversy with the defendants (Aetna Life Ins. Co. v. Haworth, 300 U. S. 227), declared Miss Elg “to be a natural born citizen of the United States,” and we think that the decree should include the Secretary of State as well as the other defendants. The decree in that sense would in no way interfere with the exercise of the Secretary’s discretion with respect to the issue of a passport, but would simply preclude the denial of a passport on the sole ground that Miss Elg had lost her American citizenship.”
There is no evidence anywhere that Obama has rejected his US citizenship and declared himself a citizen of Indonesia. Nor could his parents do that for him while he was a child.
“6. The Act of March 2, 1907, in providing “That any American citizen shall be deemed to have expatriated himself when he has been naturalized in any foreign state in conformity with its laws, . . . “ was aimed at voluntary expatriation, and was not intended to destroy the right of a native citizen, removed from this country during minority, to elect to retain the citizenship acquired by birth and to return here for that purpose, even though he may be deemed to have been naturalized under the foreign law by derivation from the citizenship of his parents before he came of age. P. 307 U. S. 342.
Page 307 U. S. 326
This is true not only where the parents were foreign nationals at the time of the birth of the child and remained such, but also where they became foreign nationals after the birth and removal of the child.”
“”The facts were these: one Steinkauler, a Prussian subject by birth, emigrated to the United States in 1848, was naturalized in 1854, and in the following year had a son who was born in St. Louis. Four years later, Steinkauler returned to Germany, taking this child, and became domiciled at Weisbaden, where they continuously resided. When the son reached the age of twenty years, the German Government called upon him to report for military duty, and his father then invoked the intervention of the American Legation on the ground that his son was a native citizen of the United States. To an inquiry by our Minister, the father declined to give an assurance that the son would return to this country within a reasonable time. On reviewing the pertinent points in the case, including the Naturalization Treaty of 1868 with North Germany, 15 Stat. 615, the Attorney General reached the following conclusion:
“Young Steinkauler is a native-born American citizen. There is no law of the United States under which his father or any other person can deprive him of his birthright. He can return to America at the age of twenty-one, and in due time, if the people elect, he can become President of the United States; but the father, in accordance with the treaty and the laws, has renounced his American citizenship and his American allegiance and has acquired for himself and his son German citizenship and the rights which it carries and he must take the burdens as well as the advantages. The son being domiciled with the father and subject to him under the law during his minority, and receiving the German protection where he has acquired nationality and declining to give any assurance of ever returning to the United States and claiming his American nationality by residence here, I am of the opinion that he cannot rightly invoke the aid of the Government of the United States to relieve him from military duty in Germany during his minority. But I am of opinion that, when he reaches the age of twenty-one years, he can then elect whether he will return and take the nationality of his birth with its duties and privileges, or retain the nationality acquired by the act of his father. This seems to me to be ‘right reason,’ and I think it is law.”
Actually, by treaty, Elg WAS considered a citizen of Sweden by the USA:
” The treaty manifestly deals with expatriation and the recognition of naturalization by the respective powers. The recital states its purpose, that is, “to regulate the citizenship of those persons who emigrate” to one country from the other. The terms of the treaty are directed to that purpose, and are appropriate to the recognition of the status of those who voluntarily take up their residence for the prescribed period in the country to which they emigrate. Article I of the treaty provides:
“Citizens of the United States of America who have resided in Sweden or Norway for a continuous period of at least five years, and during such residence have become and are lawfully, recognized as citizens of Sweden or Norway, shall be held by the government of the United States to be Swedish or Norwegian citizens, and shall be treated as such.”