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By Jerome R. Corsi

Documents released by the State

Department in two separate Freedom of
Information Act requests
bolster evidence Barack Obama became a
citizen of Indonesia when he moved to the
Southeast Asian nation with his mother and
stepfather in the late 1960s.

In a passport amendment submitted Aug. 13,

1968, Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham,
identified her son with an Indonesian surname
and asked the State Department to drop him
—
 
 



 from her U.S. passport.

The transaction could have been part of an effort by Dunham to

obtain Indonesian citizenship for her son. It took place before the State
Department began requiring all citizens traveling abroad, regardless of
age, to obtain their own passport.

Several court cases challenging Obama's presidential eligibility have

argued he gave up his U.S. citizenship in Indonesia and used
an Indonesian passport to travel to Pakistan in the early 1980s. Indonesia
does not allow dual citizenship.

The amendment was submitted less than a year after Dunham joined her
second husband, Lolo Soetoro, in Indonesia. It requested
"Barack Obama II (Soebarkah)" be removed from her U.S. passport, No.
777788.

A letter from Lolo Soetoro to immigration officials in Hawaii pleading

for an extension of his student visa, because anti-American sentiments in
Indonesia could endanger his family, offers a possible reason for
seeking Indonesian citizenship for Obama.

Meanwhile, an Indonesian school registration card that surfaced during

the 2008 presidential campaign presents evidenceObama was
an Indonesian citizen during his
time in the country as a child.

WND reported in August

2008 the Associated Press
published a photograph
purportedly of Obama's
registration card at Indonesia's
Francis Assisi school. The card
showed he was enrolled as "Barry
Soetoro" and listed as
an Indonesian citizen whose
official religious identification
was Muslim.

An AP spokesman affirmed to
WND that the photograph of the ÷  

  


registration card was authentic. 

 
—
 

  



Lolo Soetoro's letter to Immigration and Naturalization officials in the

Department of Justice in Hawaii explained his wife's
U.S. citizenship could be a problem in the turbulent politics of Indonesia
in the mid-1960s.

"My wife, Ann Soetoro, is a citizen of the United States and has resided
here all her life," Soetoro wrote the immigration officials, pleading
hardship should he be forced to return to his Indonesian home. "It is
presently impossible for my wife to return to Indonesia with me."
Soetoro argued "anti-American feeling has reached a feverish pitch
under the direction of the Indonesian communist party, and I have been
advised by both family and friends in Indonesia that it would be
dangerous to endeavor to return with my wife at the present time."

"Complicated internal problems are causing the Indonesian government

to crumble rapidly," he pleaded. "The anti-Western forces are gaining in
strength and have brought about government confiscations (sic) of all
United States industry in Indonesia as well as sacking of the United
States embassy, and burning and sacking of United States Information
Service libraries. The United States Peace Corps has recently been asked
to leave because the Indonesian government is no longer able to
guarantee the safety of corps members."

The newly released State Department records show Obama and his
mother traveled to Indonesia to join her husband in October 1967,
with Obama listed on her passport as her son and an American citizen.

When Obama's mother returned to the U.S. Oct. 20-21, 1971, she
entered with State Department forms allowing her to travel with the
passport she used in 1967 to go to Indonesia, even though it had expired.

The expired passport contained no reference to Barack Obama, although

he had traveled with his mother on the October 1967 flight from the
United States to Indonesia.

The only known testimony that Obama returned home from Indonesia
alone and on a U.S. passport is his own account in his autobiography,
"Dreams from My Father." That source, however, has proved to be
unreliable in various material aspects.

 

Did Obama's mother remove him from her passport to establish him as
an Indonesian citizen, both for his safety and his acceptance
in Indonesian schools?
If Dunham had wanted her son to retain U.S. citizenship, she could have
kept him on her passport and avoided the trouble of filing an amendment
with the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta.

On Aug. 13, 1968, the date Dunham filed the amendment, there was no
reason to anticipate she would send her son home alone, something she
did not decide do until three years later, in 1971.

In her own handwriting on the passport amendment, Dunham declared,

"I intend to continue to reside abroad for the following period and
purpose," stating her stay in Indonesia is "indefinite" because she is
"married to an Indonesian citizen."

Lolo Soetoro also appears to have had an influence on convincing

Dunham to change her mind about sending Obama to school in
Indonesia. Both were worried about that prospect when they were
pleading for Lolo not to be forced home in 1966.

A letter to the file by INS/DOJ investigator Robert R. Schultz, dated

May 24, 1967, documents a telephone call he had with Dunham in
Hawaii on May 12, 1967.

"She also indicated that her son is now in Kindergarten and will
commence the first grade next September and if it is necessary for her
and the child to go to Indonesia she will educate the child at home with
the help of school texts from the U.S. as approved by the Board of
Education in Honolulu," Schultz wrote.

Obama would not have needed Indonesian citizenship to study in Jakarta

at home with his mother.

Clearly, from the registration record from the Assisi school, being listed
as an Indonesian citizen was useful to Obama, much as his mother and
stepfather had pleaded to U.S. officials before Lolo Soetoro was denied
the waiver he needed to stay in the U.S. legally past 1966.
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