Fact Check: Does a Passport Indicate Barack Obama Was Born in Kenya?
Social media users are circulating Images of a British colonial passport belonging to a “Barack Hussein Obama” and naming Nairobi, Kenya, as the bearer’s birthplace to suggest that the passport belongs to former President Barack Obama. These claims are false. The passport belonged to Obama’s father, with whom he shares a name.
On April 11, Obama’s estranged brother Malik posted photos of his father’s passport on Twitter, claiming that he had tried in vain to persuade his brother to display the document in the latter’s presidential library. The photos were subsequently taken out of context to suggest that the Barack Hussein Obama listed as the bearer on the passport is the 44th president of the United States.
A cursory glance at the photos of the passport posted by Malik Obama is enough to discredit claims that the document belongs to his brother. The image of the bearer shown in the document is clearly of the elder Obama and not of the former president. The date of birth listed is 1934, which would make the bearer of the document 89 years old. Additionally, the document is shown to have expired in 1964, when the younger Barack Obama was only 3 years old.
In 2008, Barack Obama Jr. released the short form of his Hawaiian birth certificate to quash conspiracy theories suggesting that he was born in Kenya, which would have made him ineligible to serve as president. In 2011, after the rumors persisted, he released the long form of his birth certificate.
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