"Obama's father was here legally on a student visa."
On A STUDENT VISA ...
Barack Obama Sr. was a "Transient Alien" because
he did NOT intend on residing in the United States permanently. Barack Obama Sr. was a dual citizen of Great Britain and Kenya, and
NEVER a United States Citizen.
His mother could NOT impart U.S. citizen to her son, Barack Obama II, because she did NOT meet the legal requirements to do so, at the time
her son was born IN the Coast Provincial General Hospital, MOMBASA, KENYA at 7:21 pm on August 4, 1961.
Democrats knew this and tried to eliminate the "Natural Born Citizen" requirement at least 8 times BEFORE Obama won his election in 2008.
Obama is NOT a United States Citizen, and is NOT a LEGAL IMMIGRANT.
He has no VISA allowing him into this country.
Barack Hussein Obama II
IS ILLEGAL !
"Cruz ... his father was not a US citizen. "
The ENORMOUS DIFFERENCE is that TED CRUZ's FATHER
DID INTEND ON RESIDING IN the United States permanently.
"Natural born citizen issue. "
Well, what does the law say?
The ABC's of Immigration: Citizenship Rules for People Born Outside the United States
All persons born in the United States are citizens of the United States (with the very minor exception of certain children of diplomatic personnel).
This is perhaps the only simple rule of US citizenship.
One of the most complicated areas of US citizenship law involves the passage of citizenship to children born outside the US to one or more US citizen parents.
While naturalized US citizens are treated like natural born citizens,which includes those who are deemed citizens even when born outside the US, in almost every respect,
there is one important office that only natural born citizens can hold - the presidency(though expect to see efforts in Congress to change this if Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger decides to run for President).
Also, a person who is a citizen from birth cannot be denaturalized (though denaturalization rarely ever occurs).
The rules determining when such children are citizens are extremely detailed,
and vary a great deal depending on when the child was born since the laws changed several times in the 20th century.
...
What are the rules for people born between December 23, 1952 and November 13, 1986?
Again, children born abroad to two US citizen parents were US citizens at birth, as long as one of the parents resided in the US at some point before the birth of the child.
When one parent was a US citizen and the other a foreign national,the US citizen parent must have resided in the US for a total of 10 years prior to the birth of the child,
with five of the years after the age of 14.An EXCEPTION FOR PEOPLE SERVING IN THE MILITARY was createdby considering time spent outside the US on military duty as time spent in the US.
While there were initially rules regarding what the child must do to retain citizenship,amendments since 1952 have ELIMINATED these requirements.
Children born out of wedlock to a US citizen mother were US citizensif the mother was resident in the US for a period of one year prior to the birth of the child.
Children born out of wedlock to a US citizen father acquired US citizenshiponly if legitimated before turning 21.
So HOW does Ted Cruz's situation apply to this Law ?
The term "natural born citizen" refers to whether the person was a citizen at birth or became a citizen through naturalization.
Senator Cruz became a U.S. citizen at birth, and he never had to go through a naturalization process after birth to become a U.S. citizen, said spokeswoman Catherine Frazier.
... The U.S. Constitution allows only a natural born American citizen to serve as president.
Most legal scholars who have studied the question agree that includes an American born overseas to an American parent, such as Cruz.
When Ted Cruz was born, his parents were "IN WEDLOCK".
They married, moved to Calgary, Alberta, and in late 1970 had their first and only child, Rafael Edward Cruz.
Cruz was born on December 22, 1970 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada where his parents, Eleanor Elizabeth Darragh Wilson and Rafael Bienvenido Cruz.
Cruz's mother was born and raised in Wilmington, Delaware, in a family of three quarters Irish and one quarter Italian descent.
Eleanor Darragh, mother of Ted Cruz, was raised in Delaware, graduated from a Catholic High School (1952) in the U.S., as well as Rice University (1956), so clearly she meets the residency requirements.
Cruz's father, who was born in 1939 in Matanzas, Cuba, "suffered beatings and imprisonment for protesting the oppressive regime" of dictator Fulgencio Batista.
Source ... 74-Year-old Rafael Bienvenido Cruz:
"I came to this country legally," Cruz's father says.
"I came here with a legal visa, and ... every step of the way, I have been here legally."
In an interview near his home outside Dallas, the elder Cruz says that as a teenager, he fought alongside Fidel Castro's forces to overthrow Cuba's U.S.-backed dictator, Fulgencio Batista.
He was caught by Batista's forces, he says, and jailed and beaten before being released.
It was 1957, and Cruz decided to get out of Cuba by applying to the University of Texas.
Upon being admitted, he adds, he got a four-year student visa at the U.S. Consulate in Havana.
"Then the only other thing that I needed was an exit permit from the Batista government," Cruz recalls.
"A friend of the family, a lawyer friend of my father, basically bribed a Batista official to stamp my passport with an exit permit."
The Rafael Cruz that his son Ted portrays is a kind of Cuban Horatio Alger - - arriving in the U.S. with only $100, learning English on his own and washing dishes seven days a week for 50 cents an hour.
"Since he liked to eat seven days a week, he worked seven days a week, and he paid his way through the University of Texas," Ted Cruz says
of his father, "and then ended up getting a job and eventually going on to start a small business and to work towards the American dream."
Only he did that in Canada, where Ted was born.
His father went there after having earlier obtained political asylum in the U.S. when his student visa ran out.
He then got a green card, he says, and married Ted's mother, an American citizen.
The two of them moved to Canada to work in the oil industry.
"I worked in Canada for eight years," Rafael Cruz says. "And while I was in Canada, I became a Canadian citizen."
The elder Cruz says he renounced his Canadian citizenship when he finally became a U.S. citizen in 2005 -48 years after leaving Cuba.
Why did he take so long to do it?"I don't know. I guess laziness, or - I don't know," he says.
Peter Spiro, a legal expert on U.S. citizenship at Temple University, says Rafael Cruz followed "sort of a zigzag path to citizenship."
Spiro says Cruz's multicountry odyssey did not follow traditional models for immigration.
Citizenship Through Naturalization is different than
Citizenship Through Parents, and you need to understand the requirements.
For a better understanding of both, go to those links.
Watch these "YouTube Videos" and form your own opinion.
Ted Cruz, and Principles Over Winning | "Glenn Beck Program" ( 2:24 )
Ted Cruz is just getting started ( 4:33 )
Ted Cruz Announces His 2016 Presidential Run ( 2:06 )
LOL. You sound like a birther.
Cruz was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, to a "U.S. citizen mother and a Cuban immigrant father", giving him dual Canadian-American citizenship. Cruz applied to formally renounce his Canadian citizenship and ceased being a citizen of Canada, on May 14, 2014. Professor Chin , former Solicitor General Paul Clement, and former Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal, and Professor Peter Spiro of Temple University Law School believe Cruz meets the constitutional requirements to be eligible for the presidency. Professor McManamon (believes generally that natural-born citizens must be born in the United States, which would make Cruz ineligible. Orly Taitz, Larry Klayman, and Mario Apuzzo, who each filed multiple lawsuits challenging Obama's eligibility, have asserted Cruz is not eligible.