Posted on 02/10/2016 1:55:32 PM PST by drewh
With Ted Cruz the victor of the first contest of the GOP nominating calendar, we can no longer avoid the question mischievously posed by Donald Trump: Is Cruz ineligible to be president? Cruz was born in Canada to an American mother and a Cuban father. The Constitution says that only a “natural born citizen†can be president. Is Cruz a natural born citizen? (You may recall that before he attacked Cruz on this front, Trump spent months flogging a ludicrous version of this critique against President Obama, who was actually born in the United States, unlike Cruz.)
The words natural born citizen, and their original meaning at the time that this constitutional clause was crafted, go a long way to answering this question. In founding-era America, like today, a person could be a citizen by virtue of birth on American territory; a citizen by virtue of a statute that granted citizenship to him at birth; a “naturalized†citizen, meaning one who entered the country as an alien but later obtained citizenship via a process determined by law; and a foreigner.
A natural born citizen cannot be a foreigner. Foreigners are not citizens. A natural born citizen cannot be a person who was naturalized. Those people are not born citizens; they’re born aliens. Most important for the purposes of the Cruz question, a natural born citizen cannot be someone whose birth entitled him to citizenship because of a statute—in this case a statute that confers citizenship on a person born abroad to an American parent. In the 18th century, as now, the word natural meant “in the regular course of things.†Then, as now, almost all Americans obtained citizenship by birth in this country, not by birth to Americans abroad. The natural way to obtain citizenship, then, was (and is) by being born in this country. Because Cruz was not “natural bornâ€â€”not born in the United States—he is ineligible for the presidency, under the most plausible interpretation of the Constitution.
The 14th Amendment defines citizenship this way: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” But even this does not get specific enough. As usual, the Constitution provides the framework for the law, but it is the law that fills in the gaps.
Currently, Title 8 of the U.S. Code fills in those gaps. Section 1401 defines the following as people who are “citizens of the United States at birth:”
•Anyone born inside the United States *
•Any Indian or Eskimo born in the United States, provided being a citizen of the U.S. does not impair the person’s status as a citizen of the tribe
•Any one born outside the United States, both of whose parents are citizens of the U.S., as long as one parent has lived in the U.S.
•Any one born outside the United States, if one parent is a citizen and lived in the U.S. for at least one year and the other parent is a U.S. national
•Any one born in a U.S. possession, if one parent is a citizen and lived in the U.S. for at least one year
•Any one found in the U.S. under the age of five, whose parentage cannot be determined, as long as proof of non-citizenship is not provided by age 21
•Any one born outside the United States, if one parent is an alien and as long as the other parent is a citizen of the U.S. who lived in the U.S. for at least five years (with military and diplomatic service included in this time)
•A final, historical condition: a person born before 5/24/1934 of an alien father and a U.S. citizen mother who has lived in the U.S.
* There is an exception in the law — the person must be “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States. This would exempt the child of a diplomat, for example, from this provision.
Anyone falling into these categories is considered natural-born, and is eligible to run for President or Vice President. These provisions allow the children of military families to be considered natural-born, for example.
http://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_citi.html
Trump is right unless Ted Cruz can somehow convince the U.S. Supreme Court. If Cruz gets the nomination, then just know the DNC, along with GOPe, will shop a federal judge to disqualify Cruz. Then at the Republican convention the delegates will nominate Mr. Gang of 8 Rubio.
The same people who have zero credentials in the law, argued vociferously against Obama-born in the US to a citizen parent, and now argue vociferously for Cruz, born in Canada to one citizen parent.
If I am supposed to find credibility-consistency on the Republican side, I will need a map.
According to the definition I was taught coming up, Cruz is not eligible.
The ONLY people born outside the US that are eligible are those born to diplomat parents, or at the embassy itself.
When the Senate passed a bill for McCain, the intent was to make his birth in Panama equivalent to that of a diplomat.
It is marvelous that Cruz wants it oh so very badly, and he can recite the Constitution in Canadian, but that don’t make him an NBC as was intended by our Founders.
If it happens and I’m still alive you can remind me and I’ll eat my crow. Preferably with a good Pinot Grigio.
How is that relevant to the intent of the Framers in choosing the language which they chose for the presidential eligibility clause in Article II of the Constitution?
Yes, do you?
“Arthur was born in Canada.”
Chester A. Arthur was born in Fairfield Vermont. His mother was a limey.
This thread is bedlam.
I have no candidate as yet, I’m just sick of so called conservatives that won’t accept the constitution and what it says about citizenship.
So tata
Sweet, they do.....it’s called a search and I m not doing the work for you, I have better things to do.
Everyone I see is foaming at the mouth over this...again. If Cruz wins the nomination, it WILL be tied up in court with lawsuits from the Dem. contender...maybe even a Republican contender, you can count on it, but no use stewing about it now...it’s too late in for Cruz to get a ruling. Trump or Cruz, I’d be happy with either, but Cruz will face a challenge.
It is relevant because the very same framers wrote Article 1 Section 8. In that section, the framers specifically gave the power to establish ALL the rules that deal with naturalization. Further, in the very first acts of Congress they expressed their will via the naturalization act of 1790 which shows that citizens who were born to US parents abroad were as natural born. Jus soli was NOT the exclusive means of natural born.
You dont get to pick and choose which parts of the Constitution you want to follow.
Chester killed Garfield! /s
The courts will punt this to confess or rule he’s ok. No way would they step in on this in a negative manner.
Do you believe that any signer of the Constitution would say that a man born to an alien father in a foreign land was a "natural born citizen"?
a yawn is giving this too much attention.
one should be more concerned with getting trump’s unfavorability lowered. good thing he would be going against hillary.
Exactomundo-—Rubio is definitely NOT a natural born citizen. At the time of his birth— his parents were, neither one— were NOT US citizens. It cannot be ascribed after the fact.
Chester A. Arthur was President. His mother was an American born (in Vermont) citizen. His father an Irish to Canada immigrant who applied for citizenship in the US and was granted it 15 years after Chester was born. Then there is the remarkably similar effort by Democrats to say Arthur was born in Canada— which, at that time if he had been (instead of, as it was said, in Vermont) would have meant foreign born. Not today. Back then they hired a Democrat operative attorney, one Arthur Hinman, to prove he was NOT— and botched this first by saying Arthur was born in Ireland.
Here: http://law.marquette.edu/facultyblog/2009/10/14/president-chester-a-arthur-and-the-birthers-1880%E2%80%99s-style/
And fwiw— which, to the elitist Lefties, should be A LOT:
http://harvardlawreview.org/2015/03/on-the-meaning-of-natural-born-citizen/
Under our modern definition— which was seriously obfuscated by obamaumao and his wayward crackpot mom and WHOEVER was his dad... with multiple birthplaces (Kenya, or HI take your pick and ask the families— and which HAD to be HI and we still don’t know this without fabrication). In short, intentionally obfuscated.
Not Mr. Cruz. His Mom was/is an American citizen at the time of his birth. As was Chester A. Arthur’s mom.
But according to your seventh bullet point Cruz is a natural-born citizen.
Further, if you studied the history of the naturalization acts you would find that the 1790 act was much criticized at the time as an attempt to alter the Constitution without amending it and, therefore, being of doubtful constitutionality and that, as a result of this concern, in 1795 Congress amended the act with a successor act and took the word "natural" out.
Neither the Framers nor anyone else had the power to bypass the formal Amendment process and change the Constitution. A statute is not the Constitution and cannot change it. It is precisely for this reason that Congress changed the act in 1795 to make clear that it had not sought to define what was intended by the Article II language.
Forget it. Like Blutarsky, “He’s on a roll”.
Nope his mom was not in the military or a diplomat.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.