Yes, birthers, Ted Cruz IS a natural-born citizen of the U.S.

This should not even be an issue any longer, but there are still some out there who didn't get the legal memo.

The origins of the Natural Born Citizenship Clause date back to a letter John Jay (who later authored several of the Federalist Papers and served as our first chief justice) wrote to George Washington, then president of the Constitutional Convention, on July 25, 1787. At the time, as Justice Joseph Story later explained in his influential Commentaries on the Constitution, many of the framers worried about “ambitious foreigners who might otherwise be intriguing for the office.” “Permit me to hint, 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 army shall not be given to nor devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen,” Jay wrote.

Washington thanked Jay for his hints in a reply dated September 2, 1787. Shortly thereafter, the natural-born citizenship language appeared in the draft Constitution the Committee of Eleven presented to the Convention. There is no record of any debate on the clause.

While it is possible to trace the origins of the Natural Born Citizenship Clause, it is harder to determine its intended scope—who did the framers mean to exclude from the presidency by this language? The Naturalization Act of 1790 probably constitutes the most significant evidence available. Congress enacted this legislation just three years after the drafting of the Constitution, and many of those who voted on it had participated in the Constitutional Convention. The act provided that “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.” There is no record of discussion of the term natural born citizen, but it is reasonable to conclude that the drafters believed that foreign-born children of American parents who acquired citizenship at birth could and should be deemed natural born citizens.

What can we expect if Senator Cruz or another similarly situated candidate runs for president in 2016? Undoubtedly, the controversy will continue with passionate advocates on both sides of the issue. A scholarly consensus is emerging, however, that anyone who acquires citizenship at birth is natural born for purposes of Article II. This consensus rests on firm foundations. First, given Jay’s letter and the language of the 1790 naturalization act, it seems evident that the framers were worried about foreign princes, not children born to American citizens living abroad. Second, the 14-year residency requirement Article II also imposes as a presidential prerequisite ensures that, regardless of their place of birth, would-be presidents must spend a significant time living in the United States before they can run for office.

Two former top Justice Department lawyers say there is “no question” Ted Cruz is eligible for the presidency, in a new Harvard Law Review article that seeks to put to rest any doubt about the Texas Republican. “Despite the happenstance of a birth across the border, there is no question that Senator Cruz has been a citizen from birth and is thus a ‘natural born citizen’ within the meaning of the Constitution,” write Neal Katyal and Paul Clement in an article published March 11. “There are plenty of serious issues to debate in the upcoming presidential election cycle. The less time spent dealing with specious objections to candidate eligibility, the better.”

The Harvard Law Review article is notable because it is a bipartisan assessment that Cruz meets the Constitution’s requirement that the president be a “natural born citizen.” Katyal was an acting solicitor general in the Obama administration from May 2010 to June 2011. Clement was solicitor general from 2004 to 2008 in the Bush administration and is, perhaps, best known nationally among conservatives for arguing the case against President Obama’s health care law before the Supreme Court in 2012.

Katyal and Clement review the intent and meaning behind “natural born citizen,” going back to the Founding Fathers. The question about citizenship and presidential eligibility has also affected Barry Goldwater, George Romney and John McCain over the years — and all met the constitutional test.

As Congress has recognized since the Founding, a person born abroad to a U.S. citizen parent is generally a U.S. citizen from birth with no need for naturalization. And the phrase “natural born Citizen” in the Constitution encompasses all such citizens from birth. Thus, an 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. Finally, another bipartisan consensus:

Legal scholars are firm about Cruz’s eligibility. “Of course he’s eligible,” Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz tells National Review Online. “He’s a natural-born, not a naturalized, citizen.” Eugene Volokh, a professor at the UCLA School of Law and longtime friend of Cruz, agrees, saying the senator was “a citizen at birth, and thus a natural-born citizen — as opposed to a naturalized citizen, which I understand to mean someone who becomes a citizen after birth.” Federal law extends citizenship beyond those granted it by the 14th Amendment: It confers the privilege on all those born outside of the United States whose parents are both citizens, provided one of them has been “physically present” in the United States for any period of time, as well as all those born outside of the United States to at least one citizen parent who, after the age of 14, has resided in the United States for at least five years. Cruz’s mother, who was born and raised in Delaware, meets the latter requirement, so Cruz himself is undoubtedly an American citizen. No court has ruled what makes a “natural-born citizen,” but there appears to be a consensus that the term refers to those who gain American citizenship by birth rather than by naturalization — again, including Texas’s junior senator.

As soon as any institution of our society or any person in a position to directly influence an outcome (for example, a local, state or federal prosecuting attorney or a member of Congress) agrees with your beliefs, I’ll give them credence.

I don't believe in the fallacy of popularity. I also don't believe in the fallacy of false authority. I am not a courtier, I don't feel a need to force my opinion to coincide with that of the powers that be.

I believe they have been misled, and are objectively wrong. For quite some time, i've pondered the notion of presenting you with my theory of what happened and why. How we came to be so far away from where we should be on this issue. I think an opponent and critic will be more useful in fleshing out the theory than would be an advocate.

Several people on my side have informed me that they think I am right, but I think a critical eye may often see more and differently. One of these days perhaps.

It would have been nice if Congress or the judiciary had ever agreed with your opinion.
Instead they have agreed with the 1898 U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in U.S. v Wong Kim Ark:
“[An alien parent’s] allegiance to the United States is direct and immediate, and, although but local and temporary, continuing only so long as he remains within our territory, is yet, in the words of Lord Coke in Calvin’s Case, 7 Coke, 6a, ’strong enough to make a natural subject, for, if he hath issue here, that issue is a natural-born subject’

Subject’ and ‘citizen’ are, in a degree, convertible terms as applied to natives; and though the term ‘citizen’ seems to be appropriate to republican freemen, yet we are, equally with the inhabitants of all other countries, ’subjects,’ for we are equally bound by allegiance and subjection to the government and law of the land.’”

Purpura & Moran v Obama: New Jersey Administrative Law Judge Jeff S. Masin: “No court, federal, state or administrative, has accepted the challengers’ position that Mr. Obama is not a “natural born citizen” due to the acknowledged fact that his father was born in Kenya and was a British citizen by virtue of the then applicable British Nationality Act. Nor has the fact that Obama had, or may have had, dual citizenship at the time of his birth and thereafter been held to deny him the status of natural born. It is unnecessary to reinvent the wheel here. … The petitioners’ legal position on this issue, however well intentioned, has no merit in law. Thus, accepting for the point of this issue that Mr. Obama was born in Hawaii, he is a ‘natural born citizen’ regardless of the status of his father.” April 10, 2012
http://www.scribd.com/doc/88936737/2012-04-10-NJ-Purpura-Moran-v-Obama-Initial-Decision-of-ALJ-Masin-Apuzzo

“I don’t believe in the fallacy of popularity. I also don’t believe in the fallacy of false authority. I am not a courtier, I don’t feel a need to force my opinion to coincide with that of the powers that be.”

You have the wrong “P” word. Its not “popularity” that matters in the least, its “precedent.” And there is nothing the least bit “false” about the authority of the legislative and judicial branches to interpret and implement the provisions of the Constitution. That’s the way our system works.

Precedent
In common law legal systems, a precedent or authority is a principle or rule established in a previous legal case that is either binding on or persuasive for a court or other tribunal when deciding subsequent cases with similar issues or facts. Common law legal systems place great value on deciding cases according to consistent principled rules so that similar facts will yield similar and predictable outcomes, and observance of precedent is the mechanism by which that goal is attained. Black’s Law Dictionary defines “precedent” as a “rule of law established for the first time by a court for a particular type of case and thereafter referred to in deciding similar cases.”
Common law precedent is a third kind of law, on equal footing with statutory law (statutes and codes enacted by legislative bodies), and regulatory law (regulations promulgated by executive branch agencies).

You have the wrong “P” word. Its not “popularity” that matters in the least, its “precedent.”

In my vocabulary "Precedent" is an obscene word. It means not having to think for yourself. It means that mistakes get amplified because subsequent minds merely accept what previous minds thought, rather than working through the permutations themselves.

Wong Kim Ark is now the precedent for "Anchor Babies", and only a fool would believe that Congress wanted people sneaking across the border in violation of our law, and being gifted with American citizenship, something LEGAL immigrants have to work for and show cause.

This is why I have no respect for the Legal system's methodology. It invites mistake, and then compounds the problem by enforcing those same mistakes on subsequent iterations.

And there is nothing the least bit “false” about the authority of the legislative and judicial branches to interpret and implement the provisions of the Constitution.

I am not saying their POWER is false, I'm saying their understanding and KNOWLEDGE are false. You are looking at the wrong usage of the word "Authority." In the context of the "False Authority" fallacy, it means someone who has no actual knowledge whereof they speak. Yes, they have power, but they are IGNORANT, and determined to remain that way because of PRECEDENT. The standard legal excuse for not thinking for yourself.

To be fair, "Precedent is actually *TWO* fallacies. It is both the fallacy of false authority, and it is also the fallacy of "tu qouque." (You also.) It means you'll do one case a certain way, because a similar case was done that way previously. It's basically a "If Johnny only got 20 spats, I should only get 20 spats. It's only fair." That is the "tu quoque" aspect.

Neither aspect of Precedent corrects errors, in fact, it contributes to errors.

That’s the way our system works.

Another way of saying "We have always done things that way. "

Black’s Law Dictionary defines “precedent” as a “rule of law established for the first time by a court for a particular type of case and thereafter referred to in deciding similar cases.”

This concept can be greatly simplified by use of the word "Ruts."

You are also entitled to your own private vocabulary but that doesn’t alter the fact that in the larger context, the English, then the British then the American judicial systems are based on precedent.

I guess you don’t see the Constitution as written as precedential since that word is “obscene” to you. I guess that makes you one of those “constitution as a living document-types.” Originalism is about adhering to precedent.

“The Commentaries on the Laws of England are an influential 18th-century treatise on the common law of England by Sir William Blackstone, originally published by the Clarendon Press at Oxford, 1765–1769. The work is divided into four volumes, on the rights of persons, the rights of things, of private wrongs and of public wrongs.

The Commentaries were long regarded as the leading work on the development of English law and played a role in the development of the American legal system. They were in fact the first methodical treatise on the common law suitable for a lay readership since at least the Middle Ages. The common law of England has relied on precedent more than statute and codifications and has been far less amenable than the civil law, developed from the Roman law, to the needs of a treatise. The Commentaries were influential largely because they were in fact readable, and because they met a need. The work is as much an apologia for the legal system of the time as it is an explanation; even when the law was obscure, Blackstone sought to make it seem rational, just, and inevitable that things should be how they were.

The Commentaries are often quoted as the definitive pre-Revolutionary source of common law by United States courts. Opinions of the Supreme Court of the United States quote from Blackstone’s work whenever they wish to engage in historical discussion that goes back that far, or farther (for example, when discussing the intent of the Framers of the Constitution). The book was famously used as the key in Benedict Arnold’s book cipher, which he used to communicate secretly with his conspirator John André during their plot to betray the Continental Army during the American Revolution.”—Wikipedia

Unlike you, I do not lump 535 members of Congress and the entire U.S. judiciary together as “ignorant” just because they don’t agree with my position on an issue. I think THAT is ignorant.

Unlike you, I do not lump 535 members of Congress and the entire U.S. judiciary together as “ignorant” just because they don’t agree with my position on an issue. I think THAT is ignorant.

They are ignorant because they simply buy in to the common legal opinion, which is itself a byproduct of previous legal opinions that have been misrepresented as to intent and scope.

The Wong Kim Ark decision is not wrong if looked at in the right (minimalist) light. The idea that it justifies anchor babies and birth tourists is exactly wrong. Wong Kim Ark never went that far.

But that is the common opinion. It is ignorant, and it is wrong, and all 535 members who hold it are also wrong. If the nine justices of the Supreme court hold that opinion, they too are wrong. It is objectively wrong, but thanks to misinterpreted precedent, a large majority believe this wrong thing to be true.

The Wong Kim Ark ruling was meant to be widely interpreted not narrowly interpreted. At any time since 1898 Congress could pass legislation excluding anchor babies from qualifying as Citizens of the United States At Birth.

United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898)

For lurkers here who may be unfamiliar with the particulars:
Facts: Wong Kim Ark was born in 1873 in the city of San Francisco in California. His parents were both Chinese immigrants and remained subjects of the Chinese emperor while they lived in the United States. Ever since he was born, Wong Kim Ark lived in California. Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, which denied citizenship to any Chinese immigrants and did not allow any new immigrant laborers to come from China until 1892. In 1890, Wong Kim Ark’s parents returned to China. He visited them that same year, but he came back to San Francisco, and he was then recognized as a “native-born citizen” by the U.S. customs officials. In 1894, when he was 21 years old, he went back to China to visit his parents again. In 1895, he attempted to re-enter the United States, but U.S. customs officials denied his entry, claiming this time that he was not a U.S. citizen.

Issues: Does a child born in the United States to parents of Chinese descent become a U.S. citizen by birth, according to the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution?

Holding: Yes. The Chinese Exclusion Act was passed 14 years after the Fourteenth Amendment, so it cannot possibly control the meaning of the amendment. Justice Horace Gray wrote the opinion of the Supreme Court, which stated that the Chinese Exclusion Act “must be construed and executed in subordination” to the Fourteenth Amendment. The court held that the government cannot deny citizenship to ANYONE born within the United States, including Wong Kim Ark. Furthermore, if he was a citizen, then the Chinese Exclusion Act could not apply to him. Wong Kim Ark’s parents, in particular, were not engaged in any diplomatic or official capacity in the United States at any time.

It is crystal clear that the Founding Fathers used the Natural Law definition of 'natural born Citizen' when they wrote Article II. By invoking "The Laws of Nature and Nature's God" the 56 signers of the Declaration incorporated a legal standard of freedom into the forms of government that would follow.

President John Quincy Adams, writing in 1839, looked back at the founding period and recognized the true meaning of the Declaration's reliance on the "Laaws of Nature and of Nature's God." He observed that the American people's "charter was the Declaration of Independence. Their rights, the natural rights of mankind. Their government, such as should be instituted by the people, under the solemn mutual pledges of perpetual union, founded on the self-evident truth's proclaimed in the Declaration."

Note the reference to Natural Law in the first sentence of our Declaration of Independence.

The Supreme Court of the United States has never applied the term “natural born citizen” to any other category than “those born in the country of parents who are citizens thereof”.

Citizenship Terms Used in the U.S. Constitution - The 5 Terms Defined & Some Legal Reference to Same

"The citizenship of no man could be previous to the declaration of independence, and, as a natural right, belongs to none but those who have been born of citizens since the 4th of July, 1776."....David Ramsay, 1789.

A Dissertation on Manner of Acquiring Character & Privileges of Citizen of U.S.-by David Ramsay-1789

The Law of Nations or the Principles of Natural Law (1758)

The Laws of Nature and of Nature's God: The True Foundation of American Law

Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Volume 20 - Use of The Law of Nations by the Constitutional Convention

No theory to it.
I repost PROOF for those you have intentionally confused.

FACT:

according to the law at that time

What are the rules for people born between December 23, 1952 and November 13, 1986? The 14th Amendment IS a part of the U.S. Constitution and states in SECTION 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article. So, under that power to legislate, Congress legislated antd the President signed into law: 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. ... While there were initially rules regarding what the child must do to retain citizenship,amendments since 1952 HAVE ELIMINATED THESE REQUIREMENTS. 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. Source In 1957, Rafael Bienvenido Cruz (Ted Cruz's father) 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. "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.

for Ted Cruz to be a "Natural Born Citizen"

“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.

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