One of the avenues of approach taken by “birthers” in their quest to demonstrate that Barack Obama is not eligible to hold the office of President of the United States is to try to demonstrate that, even if he was born in the United States, he gave up his U.S. citizenship somewhere along the way … and if he’s not a U.S. citizen, then he can’t legitimately be President of the United States. Therefore, many birthers gleefully seized onto a supposed news report from April 2009, which purported that Barack Obama attended Occidental College in Los Angeles under a scholarship granted only to students of “foreign citizenship”:

April 1, 2009 Final Nail In Obama’s Lack Of US Citizenship Coffin? AP — WASHINGTON D.C.: In a move certain to fuel the debate over Obama’s qualifications for the presidency, the group Americans for Freedom of Information has released copies of President Obama’s college transcripts from Occidental College. Released today, the transcript indicates that Obama, under the name Barry Soetoro, received financial aid as a foreign student from Indonesia as an undergraduate at the school. The transcript was released by Occidental College in compliance with a court order in a suit brought by the group in the Superior Court of California. The transcript shows that Obama (Soetoro) applied for financial aid and was awarded a fellowship for foreign students from the Fulbright Foundation Scholarship program. To qualify, for the scholarship, a student must claim foreign citizenship. This document would seem to provide the smoking gun that many of Obama’s detractors have been seeking. The news has created a firestorm at the White House as the release casts increasing doubt about Obama’s legitimacy and qualification to serve as president. When reached for comment in London, where he has been in meetings with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Obama smiled but refused comment on the issue. Meanwhile, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs scoffed at the report stating that this was obviously another attempt by a right-wing conservative group to discredit the president and undermine the administrations efforts to move the country in a new direction. Britain’s Daily Mail has also carried the story in a front-page article titled, Obama Eligibility Questioned, leading some to speculate that the story may overshadow economic issues on Obama’s first official visit to the U.K. In a related matter, under growing pressure from several groups, Justice Antonin Scalia announced that the Supreme Court agreed on Tuesday to hear arguments concerning Obama’s legal eligibility to serve as President in a case brought by Leo Donofrio of New Jersey. This lawsuit claims Obama’s dual citizenship disqualified him from serving as president. Donofrios case is just one of 18 suits brought by citizens demanding proof of Obama’s citizenship or qualification to serve as president. Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation has released the results of their investigation of Obama’s campaign spending. This study estimates that Obama has spent upwards of $950,000 in campaign funds in the past year with eleven law firms in 12 states for legal resources to block disclosure of any of his personal records. Mr. Kreep indicated that the investigation is still ongoing but that the final report will be provided to the U.S. attorney general, Eric Holder. Mr. Holder has refused to comment on the matter.

However, this item wasn’t a news report at all — it was a hoax whose elements were all demonstrably false:

The article was datelined “April 1, 2009” and tagged “AP,” supposedly signifying it came from the Associated Press news agency. The date was a giveaway to the hoax (it’s April Fool’s Day), and the text of the article does not at all fit the standard Associated Press stylebook guidelines.

There was no such group as “Americans for Freedom of Information” at the time this article began circulating (although someone has since registered a site using that domain name); in fact, a web site for the then-faux organization was established to poke fun at those who believed it did:

Read these tiny words very closely: the group Americans for Freedom of Information does not exist, just like the supposed “AP article” you keep cutting and pasting into e-mails to your irritated family does not exist, just like the “Daily Mail article” referenced in the fake “AP article” does not exist. They’re all fabrications. Fakes. Hoaxes. Ask yourself why you’re so eager to believe these obvious fakes. No, really. Really, really ask yourself.

Barack Obama attended Occidental College in California for two years as an undergraduate from 1979-81 under the name Obama, not Soetoro (the latter is the surname of his Indonesian stepfather, Lolo Soetoro):

Occidental has no record of a “Barry Soetoro” ever attending [Occidental], nor was there ever any such court order [requiring the school to turn over his transcripts], said Jim Tranquada, Occidental College’s communications director, who personally answers the inquiries, demands and pleas of people looking for proof that the president is not who he claims to be. Tranquada said: “Contemporary public documents, such as the 1979-80 freshman ‘Lookbook’ [a guide distributed to incoming freshman] published at the beginning of President Obama’s first year at Occidental, list him as Barack Obama. All of the Occidental alumni I have spoken to from that era (1979-81) who knew him, knew him as Barry Obama.”

If Barack Obama were an Indonesian citizen, he couldn’t possibly have “received financial aid” or “been awarded a fellowship for foreign students” from the Fulbright Foundation Scholarship program while attending Occidental as an undergraduate. Fulbright scholarships for foreign students of Indonesian citizenship are coordinated through the American Indonesian Exchange Foundation (AMINEF), which does not fund Indonesians for undergraduate study in the United States (only for master’s or doctorate programs).

Barack Obama’s student records from Occidental College remain unreleased. He has not chosen to make them public, nor has any court ordered the school to release them.

Searches of newspaper archives and electronic news databases show that neither Britain’s Daily Mail nor any other major UK newspaper published a front-page article entitled “Obama Eligibility Questioned” in 2009, nor did any such newspaper publish an article consisting of the text reproduced above.

nor any other major UK newspaper published a front-page article entitled “Obama Eligibility Questioned” in 2009, nor did any such newspaper publish an article consisting of the text reproduced above. Leo Donofrio’s lawsuit challenging Barack Obama’s eligibility for the presidency was denied a hearing by the Supreme Court of New Jersey back in December 2008. It has not been taken up by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The web site of the United States Justice Foundation includes no report of an “investigation of Obama’s campaign spending,” and the executive director of that organization who is referenced in the e-mail, Gary Kreep, said in response to an inquiry that the e-mail was a hoax.

<!–

Variations:

In September 2009, this item was prefaced with photographs of Barack Obama’s family (Barack Obama posing with his mother; his step-father, Lolo Soetoro; and his half-sister, Maya) and an Indonesian elementary school registration form for Barack Obama:



Meet the Soetoros Meet the Soetoros Indonesia

Left to Right: Lolo Soetoro, Stanley Ann Dunham Soetoro, baby Maya Soetoro, and 9 year old Barry Soetoro This registration document, made available on Jan. 24, 2007, by the Fransiskus Assisi school in Jakarta, Indonesia, shows the registration of Barack Obama under the name Barry Soetoro made by his step-father, Lolo Soetoro. Name: Barry Soetoro

Religion: ….. Islam

Nationality: ….. Indonesian How did little INDONESIAN, Barry Soetoro, (A.K.A. Barack Obama) get around the issue of nationality to become president? Someone who tells lies is a L __ __ r?



After her divorce from her first husband, Barack Obama’s mother married an Indonesian student named Lolo Soetoro who was attending college in Hawaii; in 1967 the family moved to Indonesia, where Barack attended elementary school in Jakarta until 1971, when he returned to Hawaii to live with his maternal grandparents. Much has been made of the above-displayed registration from St. Francis of Assisi School in Jakarta, which ostensibly shows Barack Obama’s stepfather having listed his stepson’s nationality as “Indonesian” (thereby supposedly indicating that Barack Obama relinquished his U.S. citizenship at some point)

However, Lolo Soetoro’s putatively listing his stepson’s nationality as Indonesian on a school registration form does not in itself demonstrate that Barack Obama was officially regarded as an Indonesian citizen by the government of that country. In any case it’s a moot point, since the same form shows that Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, thereby making him a U.S. citizen from birth, and U.S. law states that a foreign nationality acquired through an alien parent does not affect one’s U.S. citizenship status, nor can a child’s U.S. citizenship be renounced solely through the actions of his parents:



The automatic acquisition or retention of a foreign nationality, acquired, for example, by birth in a foreign country or through an alien parent, does not affect U.S. citizenship. The automatic acquisition or retention of a foreign nationality, acquired, for example, by birth in a foreign country or through an alien parent, does not affect U.S. citizenship. Parents cannot renounce U.S. citizenship on behalf of their minor children. Before an oath of renunciation will be administered under Section 349(a)(5) of the INA, a person under the age of eighteen must convince a U.S. diplomatic or consular officer that he/she fully understands the nature and consequences of the oath of renunciation, is not subject to duress or undue influence, and is voluntarily seeking to renounce his/her U.S. citizenship.



–>