Posted on 03/28/2015 4:05:00 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s announcement Monday that he will run for president has Donald Trump, the ladies on “The View,” and others in the birther crowd questioning Cruz’s eligibility to be president.
Born in Alberta, Canada in 1970, Cruz is the son of an American mother and Cuban father. Anticipating these questions, Cruz released his birth certificate in 2013 and officially renounced his dual Canadian citizenship in 2014.
This isn’t the first time a candidate’s eligibility has been questioned—the issue dogged President Obama in 2008, George Romney in 1967, and President Chester Arthur in 1880. But is there any merit in the case against Ted Cruz?
The United States Constitution lays out three qualifications to be president: he or she must be 35 years old, a resident of the United States for 14 years and a natural-born citizen. The Constitution does not define “natural born citizen,” but many clues exist that help determine its meaning.
As former Solicitor Generals Neal Katyal and Paul Clement discuss in an article for the Harvard Law Review Forum, John Jay (who later become the first chief justice) advised George Washington:
Whether it would not be wise & seasonable to provide a … strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government; and to declare expressly that the Command in chief of the american [sic] army shall not be given to, nor devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen.
Justice Joseph Story wrote in his “Commentaries on the Constitution” that the natural-born citizen requirement “cuts off all chances for ambitious foreigners, who might otherwise be intriguing for the office; and interposes a barrier against those corrupt interferences of foreign governments in executive elections.” As law professor Sarah Duggin explains, it “seems evident that the Framers were worried about foreign princes, not children born to American citizens living abroad.”
Thus, the president must be a natural born citizen—and not merely a naturalized citizen. The difference boils down to whether that person was a U.S. citizen from birth.
Under the British doctrine of jus sanguinis, citizenship passes from one or both parents to a child, regardless of the birthplace. The First Congress adopted this principle as law when it enacted the Naturalization Act of 1790, which declared that “the children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond the sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens.” Though the 1790 law was superseded by subsequent naturalization laws as well as the Fourteenth Amendment, the principle of jus sanguinis remains central to understanding who is a natural born citizen.
Further, 8 U.S. Code § 1401(g) extends citizenship to children who are born outside the United States or its territories, provided that one parent is a U.S. citizen who “prior to the birth of such person, was physically present in the United States … for a period or periods totaling not less than five years.” By comparison, a naturalized citizen is a person, born in a foreign country to parents who are not U.S. citizens, who seeks to become an American citizen.
Attempting to end this debate, in 2008, the Senate unanimously passed a resolution stating that John McCain, who was born on a U.S. military base in the Panama Canal Zone, was a natural-born citizen and eligible to become president. The resolution explained there was “no evidence of the intention of the Framers or any Congress to limit the constitutional rights of children born to Americans serving in the military” and that previous presidential candidates (such as Barry Goldwater, born in Arizona before it received statehood and George Romney, born to U.S. citizen parents in Mexico) were “understood to be eligible to be president.”
Based on the original meaning of the citizenship requirement and current law, Ted Cruz is a natural-born citizen. As Katyal and Clement conclude, “[A]n individual born to a U.S. citizen parent—whether in California or Canada or the Canal Zone—is a U.S. citizen from birth and is fully eligible to serve as president if the people so choose.”
Whether or not Ted Cruz is your candidate of choice, there is no legitimate question about his constitutional eligibility to run for president.
citizen
is not the same thing as
natural born citizen
Yes he is its the law and it does no good to keep talking about it.
Some take the natural born citizen thing to an extreme. These people claimed that Rick Santorum was not eligible to run for president, because his father was not yet an American citizen at the time Rick was born. These people claim that both your parents needed to be American citizens at the time of your birth.
US surpreme court justices are extreme?
Happerset v minor
And Cruz’ dad is an American citizen, with American values, allegiance, and loyalty.
A key point is that when Cruz was very small (IIRC when 4 years old) his folks came back to America and settled in Texas; this shows their loyalties.
And he was raised by his mom and dad, solid Americans.... his mom was and is American by birth, his dad was American by heart, and later made it official.
In this instance one must look further than only the legal definitions, and look at the spirit of what the issue was, with which the Founders of this nation were concerned .
They, as was mentioned upthread, were concerned that a person with foreign loyalties, influence, and connections would try to run for the highest office in the land.
There is no concern that Cruz would take allegiance with Canada or ..... Communist Cuba... quite the opposite.
Look at what he has said and done; there is no question whatsoever as to Cruz’ loyalty, or his citizenship.
No. But citizen-at-birth is.
LOL now THAT was funny!
no, citizen-at-birth is not the same thing as natural born citizen
(I am still voting for Cruz! not to worry, and no D can possibly challenge Sen. Croz, anyway, after they foisted Obama on us!)
I don't believe that. And, it won't be a former dentist with a mail-order law degree. It will be a competent team of lawyers paid for by the GOPe and the DNC.
And, they'll know how to shop for a sympathetic judge. Even if they don't win, they will have breathless wall-to-wall coverage from the kneepad media, with the express purpose of instilling enough doubt in primary and general election voters to undermine Cruz.
I'm not going to try to predict whether Ted will prevail or not, but I hope he does. However, it's going to be a bumpy ride.
Chester Alan Arthur never ran for President. He was the Republican Vice Presidential nominee in 1880 and became President when Garfield died, and did not run for re-election in 1884 (he would have died in office if he had won in 1884). Officially he was born in Vermont but some of his opponents claimed he had been born north of the border—his father was a native of Northern Ireland and apparently was not a citizen when Chester was born. His mother was a native of Vermont, so if he really was born in Canada his case resembles Cruz’s—and his father was also a Baptist minister.
Maybe this will offer a clue:
Originally from the Langerhans Islets, Alexander Crouton-Skitch enjoyed a 10-year career as a Falkland Islands Motivational Surgeon before earning a BS and later an advanced degree in Pasquinade from Boston's prestigious Emerstone College.
Downthread it says if 0bama was born outside the us, 0bama couldn’t get us citizenship thru his mom because she was too young.
So he was stuck with British citizenship thru 0bama SR, and the citizenship of whatever country he was born in.
Plus there’s the upbringing; 0bama’s mom and he -embraced- communism.
In comparison, Cruz’ dad -FLED- communism. Big big difference between the families.
I agree
I am soooo tired of this STUPID question. IMO anyone posting this drivel is a Fn TROLL
0’s mom wasn’t old enough to convey us citizenship to 0.
Cruz’ mom was old enough.
Also look at the difference in upbringing between the two.
0’s family (mom) embraced communism/outside influences.
Cruz’ family (dad) fled it/them.
And how did he do that? By breathing??
Pssst... you should contact Cruz and try to convince him he's more of a Dobie guy than a teacup dog type. ;)
Yes.
You're right. Natural borns are citizens BY birth.
What amazes me is that watching Freepers over the years, they are SO skeptical of government, raising Cain about infringing the 2nd Amendment, railing against some ridiculous 'finding' of one court or another.
But oddly enough, when it comes to this particular subject, few seem to question or examine anything government says at any point in time...they just go "It's a citizen, so, okay!"
The lack of reflection on the issue just seems mind-boggling to me.
I attended Catholic school. On the day I graduated from the 8th grade, I dropped water filled balloons on a cluster of nuns from the second story of the school.
This is just one reason (on a long list) why I never ran for president. ;>)
many of us are so dam*d tired of so MANY of our Constitutional rights being ignored or infringed upon.
Amendments 1,2,4,5, etc and so forth and so on.
I repeat that i like most of what I hear from Senator Cruz and I am quite prepared to vote for him despite the eligibility issue (this represents a significant change in my POV). The D’s have destroyed much of the constitution including so obviously the qualifications clause ... Obama’s own claimed parentage alone disqualified him for goodness sakes!.... regardless of whether he was born in Kenya, as his grandma and aunt maintain, or whichever of the two Hawaii hospitals he’s claimed as his hatching site.....or whether he was indeed hatched, but on Planet Ferengi (the race of liars in sci fi TV).
ANYWAY, America desperately needs someone who can repair the damage of the past 6 (to be 8) years. I intend to vote for the person who looks most capable of doing this.
And Calgary (bless the place) is now FINE with me, notwithstanding the eligibility issue it (and Cruz’s daddy) raises.
Politics is the art of the possible.
If a natural born citizen runs who is Cruz’s equal, I will of course vote for him or her.
I admit to being impure about this now. Maintaining my previous intellectual virginity was a losing strategy. If the D’s can draw on the entire world’s population (or that of the United Federation of Planets) to install a Demolition Derby individual in our White House, someone who breaks or subverts or destroys anything and everything about our country he can get his hands on......... then its time I stopped being such a sticker, purist about constitutional clauses, too. Fight fire with fire?
Anyway, its all IMHO and I am not going to try to convince anyone of anything about this. People have their minds made up anyway. Its almost like going to a “feminist” meeting to discuss alternatives to “free abortions”
a noble cause, but frankly beyond my capabilities.
All the best,
fhc
Not according to the Republican Governor of Hawaii when he first started running.
“You know, during the campaign of 2008, I was actually in the mainland campaigning for Sen. McCain. This issue kept coming up so much in the campaign, and again I think it’s one of those issues that is simply a distraction from the more critical issues that are facing the country. And so I had my health director, who is a physician by background, go personally view the birth certificate in the birth records of the Department of Health, and we issued a news release at that time saying that the president was, in fact, born at Kapi’olani Hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii. And that’s just a fact. And yet people continue to call up and e-mail and want to make it an issue. And I think it’s, again, a horrible distraction for the country by those people who continue this. It’s been established. He was born here.”—Governor Linda Lingle, May 4, 2010
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