Top US court rejects Obama citizenship case

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected a case filed by a New Jersey attorney who questioned whether president-elect Barack Obama was a "natural born" American, a prerequisite for running for the White House.

In the case, plaintiff Leo Donofrio argued that although Obama was born in Hawaii the president-elect was not exclusively a U.S. citizen at the time of his birth because his father was a citizen of Kenya, formerly British East Africa, meaning Obama was also a British citizen.

The court did not give a reason for rejecting the case, which was the second such challenge the justices have refused to take up in recent weeks.

In the earlier case, which the court threw out on the eve of the historic election when Obama was elected as the first African-American president, Pennsylvania lawyer Philip Berg alleged that Obama was born in his father's homeland of Kenya.

In another case challenging Obama's citizenship, U.S. lawyer Joseph Farah, who is of Lebanese origin, filed a claim against Obama's presidency, citing suspicions over his birth certificate.

Farah argued that Obama did not have a birth certificate to prove that he was born an American—as opposed to being naturalized—and said it contradicted the U.S. constitution.

Birth certificate

According to a birth certificate for Obama made public by his campaign, the president-elect was born in Hawaii in August 1961, two years after the archipelago became a state.

The U.S. constitution provides the framework for the law on who is a citizen, saying in the 14th amendment: "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."

Laws passed since the constitution are more specific about who is a citizen at birth.

They include anyone born inside the United States, a person born in a U.S. possession if one parent is a citizen and lived in the United States for at least a year; and anyone born outside the United States to at least one U.S.-citizen parent who has lived in the U.S. for a minimum of five years.