Obama's Sealed Vital Statistics in Hawaii

United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 7 states, "The child shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right from birth to a name, the right to acquire a nationality..."


Sealed birth records is the process of sealing the original birth certificate of an adoptee when the adoption is finalized. The original sealed birth certificate is replaced with a birth certificate declaring the adoptee to be the child of his or her adoptive parents. Record sealing is the process of removing from general review the records pertaining to a court case.  After a record is sealed, the contents are legally considered never to have occurred. A sealed record is the legal right to deny or fail to acknowledge anything to do with the legal proceedings from the case itself.

In Hawaii, access to post-adoption records are controlled by HI Rev. Stat. §§ 578-14; 578-15; 338-20, a new birth certificate is issued, the original birth certificate shall be sealed. The sealed document may be opened by the department only by an order of a court or when requested in accordance with § 578-15.

St. Francis Assisi Elementary Enrollment Record of Barry Soetoro, January 1, 1968.

If a new birth certificate is issued, the original birth certificate shall be sealed. The sealed document may be opened by the department only by an order of a court or when requested in accordance with § 578-15. Obama's original long form birth certificate was sealed when the Soetoro adoption was finalized. A review of Obama's St. Francis Assisi school record indicates his legal name was changed to Barry Soetoro before January 1, 1968. Barry Soetoro was born in Honolulu, HI on August 4, 1961.