Anwar al-Awlaki came to study in the US,
he came on a foreign student visa. You see, even though al-Awlaki was born in Las Cruces, New Mexico,
his parents were not American citizens. In fact, after his father completed his studies here, the family returned to Yemen. Anwar would not even be considered a 14th Amendment citizen, which states "All person born or naturalized in the United States, and
subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." Anwar's parents were never US citizens, nor did they intend to become citizens;
neither did his parents have "a permanent domicile and residence in the United States," which is the standard according to the Supreme court decision in
United States vs Wong Kim Ark. According to the State Department, there are different rules, and, since al-Awlaki came to the US on a scholarship from Yemen, we can assume that he renounced his US citizenship, because Yemen does not recognize dual citizenship. Furthermore, his father was the Agriculture Minister in Yemen. Otherwise, why would al-Awlaki have come on a foreign student visa to study in Colorado in 1991?
He was born here and is an American citizen just like any other child born here regardless of the nationality of the parents (diplomatic personnel). No you can’t assume he renounced his American citizenship. There are specific rules about that.http://travel.state.gov/law/citizenship/citizenship_776.html You got proof that he did those things? The different rules link your post also makes the point that he’s a US citizen by birth. It’s in the section Citizenship by being Born in the United States.
As for the Wong Kim Ark case I’ll bet there are many superseding cases. That case was decided in a period where we were trying to exclude all Chinese from becoming citizens and severely limited their rights in ways that no current court would or should. The court also in this case held he was in fact a citizen of the United States and couldn’t be kept out (last paragraph).
Why did he come as a foreign student. Fox’s answer in their broadcast was that he wanted the full scholarship that was being provided to foreign students. If he was a US citizen he wouldn’t have been eligible. Basically he committed fraud to get the scholarship.
His farther was not a diplomat when the child was born so the diplomatic exclusion would not apply.