Loren

Those would be interesting especially if they would show the [lack of] entry for a return from Kenya around mid August 1961. I would first like to see the reply to Doc C's FOIA request for passports issued to Stanley Ann Dunham.

Responding to a Freedom of Information Act request, the State Department has released passport records of Stanley Ann Dunham, President Obama's mother – but records for the years surrounding Obama's 1961 birth are missing.

The State Department claims a 1980s General Services Administration directive resulted in the destruction of many passport applications and other "nonvital" passport records, including Dunham's 1965 passport application and any other passports she may have applied for or held prior to 1965.

Destroyed, then, would also be any records shedding light on whether Dunham did or did not travel out of the country around the time of Barack Obama's birth.

The claim made in the Freedom of Information response letter that many passport records were destroyed during the 1980s comes despite a statement on the State Department website that Passport Services maintains U.S. passport records for passports issued from 1925 to the present.

Doc's FOIA request was worded slightly differently than Strunk's. Strunk only asked for passport application records while Doc asked for those in addition for records of passports issued. Doc speculates that the records of passports issued were not covered by the GAO destruction order. This is an important distinction. The letter you posted only mentions that passport applications were destroyed. Doc has posted two articles on the issue here and here

My Freedom of Information Act request has been hung up with a State Department legal team since last July, the second time it has been to legal.

I'm probably missing something here, but Obama Sr. was traveling on a Kenyan passport, no? So no passport application or issuance in the US?

So, at best, a student visa application would turn up? I'm not sure how helpful that would be to anyone?

Thanks for Doc's details. But it has been five months with no reply to Doc's request from the State Department:

But the US gov't ended up having 80+ pages of material on him, including at least one letter that specifically IDed little Barack as an American citizen, and absolutely nothing that reflected an adoption.

Well, yes, but also had the mysterious "Soebarkah" notation, giving rise to a new round of lunacy, rather than settling anything.

I believe that was in Ann's records, not Lolo's.

And in any case, I'm not really saying we SHOULD seek out Senior's records. Like I said, I don't think they'd settle anything. I was really just wondering aloud whether anyone HAD requested them, and especially wondering why the Birthers themselves hadn't expressed any more interest.

Thanks for Doc's details. But it has been five months with no reply to Doc's request from the State Department:

If the 1965 passport did include Barack Obama, the Department of State is presented with a legal dilemma. They cannot release the passport card itself because it contains information about a living person, contrary to their rules. On the other hand, they cannot redact the name of Barack Obama because the very act of redaction discloses that he was on the passport, since he is publicly known to be the only child of Stanley Ann Dunham.

Krikey! These family passports create quite the confusion. But it doesn't seem like much of a violation to me to say: "we can't release the records since they contain information about a living person."Yes, we do all believe that living person would be Barack Obama. But the statement would not imply anything more than the President has explicity stated himself: who his parents and stepfather were.

But other information about the President's travels that he himself has not disclosed would remain private.

So, if it were me, I'd tell them to put it their pipe and smoke it.

The problem is, some of the poor birferz would read that to mean O's mom is still alive...

The problem is, some of the poor birferz would read that to mean O's mom is still alive...

EXCLUSIVE: Dad’s Immigration File Offers More Evidence Of Obama’s Birthplace ...

A memo dated Aug. 31, 1961 from William Wood of Immigration and Naturalization Services indicates that Barack Obama, Sr., was attending the University of Hawaii on a student visa and that a son, Barack Obama, II, was born in Honolulu on Aug, 8, 1961.

The memo refers to Obama Sr.’s plans to attend the University of Hawaii for one more year to obtain his bachelor’s degree in economics, and that his spouse, a United States citizen, plans to work at the university.

“They have one child born Honolulu on 8/4/1961 – Barack Obama II, child living with mother (she lives with her parents & subject resides at 1482 Alisteastre St.),” the memo states.

Documents also show that Obama, Sr. entered the country in 1959, and received several extensions to his visa prior to being denied in July, 1964.

A memo from Lyle H. Dahlim of the INS, written in April, 1961, says the agency “recommend(s) that Subject be closely questioned before another extension is granted – and denial be considered. If his USC (United States Citizen) wife tries to petition for him make sure an investigation is conducted as to the bona-fide of the marriage.”

The documents also show that the CIS investigated the elder Obama as a polygamist, having a wife in Kenya and a “wife and child in Honolulu.” Dahlim’s memo adds that “Polygamy is not an excludable or deportation charge as Subject is a non-immigrant.”
Documents show that Obama, Sr. was denied an extension on his student visa in July, 1964, in part because Harvard University, where Obama, Sr., was a Ph.D. candidate, sought his removal. Obama Sr. eventually left the United States willingly after becoming an illegal alien for remaining in the country past the expiration of his visa.
An INS investigator, M.F. McKeon, wrote “They (Harvard officials) weren’t very impressed with him and asked us to hold up action on his application until they decided what action they could take in order to get rid of him. They were apparently having difficulty with his financial arrangements and couldn’t seem to figure out how many wives he had.”
Documents show that Harvard officials considered Obama, Sr. to be a “slippery character,” and conspired with the INS to have him deported.
Inquiries with the White House were not immediately returned.

The Arizona Independent FOIAed Barack Obama's father's immigration file, adding some interesting and mostly unflattering details to a story that has been told mostly by a son who barely knew him.

The immigration agents assigned to his case report that he departed voluntarily after his status expired, which happened when he never began his Harvard thesis. Harvard's decision-makers "weren't very impressed with him," the agent reported, but at one point asked the INS to delay his case "until they decided what action they could take in order to get rid of him."

The file indicates that Harvard sent him back to Kenya to write his thesis as a gentle way of pushing him out, after denying him funding to stay.

The papers also indicate that INS suspected (accurately) that he had already been married in Kenya, but features agents noting that polygamy isn't grounds for deporting someone on a non-immigrant visa.

Link's not working for me at all - must be overloaded with overexcited birfers!