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Please note this thread is not intended to debate whether or not Obama is eligible to be president of the United States, but rather, the thread is to simply establish the particular requirements which establish an acquired United States citizenship as distinguished from those particulars which establish one as being a natural born citizen, the latter of which is a requirement to be president of the United States.

Hopefully the Supreme Court will hear the pending case involving this issue and restate the distinctions between a natural born citizen and a citizenship which is acquired, and do so in such a manner as will be in harmony with the very clear intentions and beliefs under which the involved constitutional provisions were adopted.

The Anchor Baby Myth and natural born citizenship

In relatively recent years it has been alleged that because of the Fourteenth Amendment‘s adoption, every child born on American soil becomes a citizen of the United States even if that child‘s parents are foreign nationals.

But the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1868 after the Civil War, articulates the following concerning citizenship:

All persons 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.
And in Elk v. Wilkins, 112 U.S. 101 (1884) the court points out with reference to the 14th Amendment:

'This section contemplates two sources of citizenship, and two sources only,-birth and naturalization. The persons declared to be citizens are 'all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof .' The evident meaning of these last words is, not merely subject in some respect or degree to the jurisdiction of the United States, but completely subject to their political jurisdiction, and owing them direct and immediate allegiance.
The important point here is to fully understand that one must not only be born on American soil to be a citizen of the United States, but likewise be subject to the “jurisdiction thereofâ€