Rocky made unsupported claim that Obama is a citizen of U.S. and Kenya

Summary: An online Rocky Mountain News article claimed without any supporting evidence that Sen. Barack Obama holds "both American and Kenyan (since 1963) citizenship." The claim in the news article, which had no byline, mirrored material posted on the Internet Movie Database website and has since been posted on several conservative blogs. However, the News did not report that the U.S. State Department's says "Kenya does not officially recognize dual nationality" or that Kenya's constitution explicitly prohibits dual citizenship.

In an August 6 online news article headlined "Things you might not know about Barack Obama," the Rocky Mountain News repeated a claim that Obama has been a dual citizen of the United States and Kenya since 1963, but provided no evidence beyond listing as its sources for the article the Internet Movie Database (IMDB), Biography.com, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The article, which had no byline, printed verbatim from the IMDB profile for Obama the entry: "Holds both American and Kenyan (since 1963) citizenship." IMDB did not cite a source for its information -- which it listed under the heading "Trivia" -- but according to the U.S. Department of State, "Kenya does not officially recognize dual nationality."

The Biography.com entry for Obama did not address the dual-citizenship topic, and a search of the Journal-Constitution's content on the Nexis database (using the search terms "Obama!" and "Kenya!" for all possible dates) did not identify any articles in that newspaper addressing the topic.

The News did not indicate whether it contacted the Obama campaign or his Senate office to verify the claim that he holds dual U.S.-Kenyan citizenship.

Since the News posted the August 6 online article listing purported "facts" about the candidate -- a list that included Obama's accomplishments at Harvard Law School as well as his favorite movies -- the dual-citizenship claim has been repeated by conservative blogs such as Gateway Pundit and FreeRepublic, citing the News as the source of the information.

However, on its Kenya web page, the State Department's Bureau of Consular Affairs states: "Kenya does not officially recognize dual nationality." Moreover, Kenya's constitution explicitly prohibits dual citizenship and nullifies Kenyan citizenship of any 21-year-old who is also the citizen of another country and who has not formally renounced citizenship of that other country:

CHAPTER IV
CITIZENSHIP

[...]

97. (1) A person who, upon the attainment of the age of twenty-one years, is a citizen of Kenya and also a citizen of some other country other than Kenya shall, subject to subsection (7), cease to be a citizen of Kenya upon the specified date unless he has renounced his citizenship of that other country, taken the oath of allegiance and, in the case of a person who was born outside Kenya, made and registered such declaration of his intentions concerning residence as may be prescribed by or under an Act of Parliament.

(2)* A person who--

(a) has attained the age of twenty-one years before 12th December, 1963; and

(b) becomes a citizen of Kenya on that day by virtue of section 87; and (c) is immediately after that day also a citizen of some country other than Kenya, shall subject to subsection (7), cease to be a citizen of Kenya upon the specified date unless he has renounced his citizenship of that other country, taken the oath of allegiance and, in the case of a person who is a citizen of Kenya by virtue of section 87 (2), made and registered such declaration of his intentions concerning residence as may be prescribed by or under an Act of Parliament.

(3) A citizen of Kenya shall, subject to subsection (7), cease to be such a citizen if--

(a) having attained the age of twenty-one years, he acquires the citizenship of some country other than Kenya by voluntary act (other than marriage); or

(b) having attained the age of twenty-one years, he otherwise acquires the citizenship of some country other than Kenya and has not, by the specified date, renounced his citizenship of that other country, taken the oath of allegiance and made and registered such declaration of his intentions concerning residence as way be prescribed by or under an Act of Parliament.

—C.H.