[arthurus]

It would be a kick-in-the-ass if we got two front runners, Cruz and Mrs. Bill and both of them get disqualified after, say, Super Tuesday, one by being indicted and arrested, the other by the Court for not being a Natural Born.

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

Great post!

[deport]

What do you farm, Farmer John?

[HonorInPa]

Wow, must’ve scored real well in logic class.

[PJBankard]

I hope you are prepared to be blasted by Cruz supporters.

[demshateGod]

Joachim or Mark Levin? Who should I trust?

[Yashcheritsiy]

Any citizen whose citizenship is derived from an act of Congress is thus a naturalized citizen, constitutionally speaking, and thus not "natural born."

Wait a second here. Since the Constitution never actually defines the term "natural born citizen," and thus is falls to Congress to define that term, isn't its doing so by statute in effect (per the argument made in this post) making EVERYONE a "naturalized" citizen?

[Cboldt]

The question is a relatively easy one to resolve as a matter of law.

Those who come to the opposite conclusion, finding Cruz to be NBC, must resort to the framework of a citizen being either naturalized (meaning going through some procedure) or not, and if they don't have to go through a procedure (if the statutory citizenship attaches automatically by circumstances of birth), then they are a natural born citizen. This framework sidesteps the distinction of citizen by operation of statute, and citizenship without resort to statute.

[Timber Rattler]

All this Cruz birther nonsense is a complete and utter embarrassment for Free Republic. You Trumpets ought to be ashamed of yourselves.

[Paine in the Neck]

The Constitution, Art. II, says in pertinant part: “No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President;”

Since everyone who was a citizen at the time of adoption is dead we can remove the grandfather clause wording. We are left with “No Person except a natural born Citizen [...] shall be eligible to the Office of President;”

Why does the Constitution speak of “citizens” and separately of “natural born citizens”? Why is the word “natural” inserted? It is a matter of allegiance.

A person can be a “citizen” if they were citizens or subjects in some other country first but have come here and met the naturalization requirements. Also, if one is the offspring of a citizen and a non-citizen, then one is a US citizen. However, in both these cases it can be argued that the person might choose allegiance to their former country or to the country of the foreign-born parent or at least the allegiance might be considered divided. That is, there is no natural allegiance of the offspring to one or the other parent’s country. It is this divided or alienated allegiance that the Constitutional provision is designed to prohibit.

If, however, both of one’s parents are themselves US citizens, then one is a “citizen” as well as a “natural born citizen”. The “natural born citizen” is one who at birth has no natural allegiance to any other country and the Framers felt could be trusted to be loyal to the US and not act as a foreign agent. [footnote: Also, in their time, the rules of royal succession held sway throught much of the world and the Founders wished to forstall any potential claims by the crowned heads of Europe or their scions to sovereignty in the US.]

Note that native born is not the same as natural born. Native born simply refers to the place of one’s birth, i.e., one’s nativity. The term does not speak to the legal circumstances of a birth, merely to its location.

[euram]

I’m a natural born citizen, having been born to US citizens in the state of MN. My daughter was born in Toronto Canada, and has a Canadian birth certificate, and is eligible for Canadian citizenship. My wife was not a US citizen at that time. When my wife became a naturalized US citizen in 1973, the INS issued her a Certificate of Naturalization, at the same time, my daughter was also given a Certificate of Naturalization (she was 4 at the time).

My bet is that when Cruz’ father became naturalized, they also issued Ted a Certificate of Naturalization.

So, I’m not quite sure whether Cruz is eligible to run for president. He definitely needs to get this cleared up in a court.

[ilgipper]

When you produce some sort of document showing he was naturalized later after birth, and not provided a US birth certificate, let’s talk again.

[Nifster]

Try listening to Mark Levin a true constitutional expert rather trying to pretend you are one

[Vermont Lt]

Boy, Trump can really get the hornet nest all riled up.

There are lots of people buzzing around, making a lot of noise.

But there isn’t any honey there, so after a while no one cares.

Aren’t there more important things to discuss—rather than settled law.

[Puzzleman]

Martin Van Buren, our eighth president, was the first to be born in the United States. George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, and Andrew Jackson were not born in the United States — mainly because there was no United States when they were born.

[taxcontrol]

The author fails in his second sentence. All actions of the US government are governed by laws. Those laws laws come from acts of Congress. Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution enumerate Congress with the “Rules of Naturalization”.

The scope of those rules are not limited. The rules include who needs to be naturalized and the rules include who does not need to be naturalized.

The current expression of those rules are listed in Title 8 section 1401. Even those citizens who are born in the US are citizens at birth (Naturally born as citizens) are defined by that law.

[Happy Rain]

“The whole thing with Cruz and how he’s brilliantly, by the way, dealing with these SILLY ALLEGATIONS that he’s not eligible on citizenship grounds. He’s really, really dealing with it smartly, brilliantly, I might say. The whole thing, it’s silly, it’s a distraction. But it is ILLUSTRATIVE of who’s aligned WHERE and with WHOM.
-Rush Limbaugh 1/8/16

So anti conservative Trumpkins hate on the Great One Mark Levin because he was right that Trump shouldn’t behave like a Left Wing Nutjob and troll Cruz with this ridiculous birther crap.
Now they can hate on Rush.

[Yosemitest]

FACT: Cruz’s father’s Cuban nationality at the time of Cruz’s birth, is irrelevant, according to the law at that time,
just so long as he was a LEGAL Immigrant at the time of Ted Cruz's birth,
AND both of Ted Cruz's parents were legally married to each other.

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 and 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.

So there is the law for the time Ted Cruz was born,
AND HOW Ted Cruz's PARENTS fulfilled ALL those requirements of the law that time, for Ted Cruz to be a "Natural Born Citizen".
Ted Cruz did NOT NEED a Court and a Judge to "Nationalize" him.

“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.

One more thing, listen to a REAL CONSTITUTIONAL LAWYER:

MARK LEVIN explains that Ted Cruz IS a natural born citizen ( 7:30 )
Published on Sep 17, 2013

[Cboldt]

This issue sets the stage for greasing a constitutional amendment through, making all citizens eligible for the office. There has been a persistent but low-level effort to do so, with Congressional resolutions to that effect. see H.J.Res. 104 in the 108th Congress for an example.

Without a "face," the people would likely oppose such an amendment. With Cruz as the face, the people would accept it.

[P-Marlowe]

Jim,

This Cruz birther thing is a blight on your forum. Every other article is some loon telling us that in their simple minded world Criz is not “qualified “ to be president.

I’m getting pretty tired of all these left wing bloggers and Donald Trump fanatics trying to undermine the election and in the end destroy the a Republic with this kind of nonsense.

Are you going to continue to allow your forum to be Birther Central?