Posted on 11/13/2014 9:33:46 PM PST by Dallas59
Can Ted Cruz run for president if he was born in Canada?
The Republican senator from Texas says he can. And just to be sure, he’s taking the extra step of renouncing the Canadian citizenship he says he didn’t even know he had.
Cruz -- full name: Rafael Edward Cruz --was born in Canada in 1970 because his father was working for the oil industry there. The senator’s recently released birth certificate shows his mother was born in Delaware and his father was born in Cuba. The Cruz family left Canada a few years later. Cruz grew up in Texas and graduated from high school there, later attending Princeton University and Harvard Law School.
(Excerpt) Read more at politifact.com ...
“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.” - Professor Sarah Helene Duggin
Yeah, you have a point there!
I’m thinking he can probably get some kind of document from Hawaii...
That's not quite the same as "Born and Raised" whatever.
And not the same as "Born" whatever.
And not the same as "Transplant" whatever.
I base this on personal experience.
I moved around the South a lot as a child, including time in Texas. Daddy was a southern born, native son, but I was born up North to a native, northern girl.
I was never a "born and raised" or "born and bred" Texan or "born and raised" or "born and bred" Southerner, always as "Transplant" who was raised/spent childhood in the South.
No kid I went to school with, no Texan or Southerner, would ever call me a "Natural Born" or "Born and Bred" Texan or a "Natural Born" or "Born and Bred" Southerner.
I wasn't and they reminded me of that throughout my childhood.
That way of defining NBC fits with my take on what the FFs had in mind for the President/not King of their newly formed US.
But hey, things change with a fundamental transformation and have since the 1960s, so what do I know? To me growing up, "gay apparel" was something you wore at Christmas, not a queer eye for the straight guy fashion makeover.
Humans can justify whatever they want and language is flexible, even when the rules are not. YMMV
“Look at this thread. The Democrats will never challenge Cruz’s eligibility because there are more than enough Republicans who will do it for them.”
While I was coaching debate, I had several occasions where one of my students beat an opponent with far superior debating skills simply by luring their opponent to move the discussion to an area where my student had superior knowledge and passion.
The Republican field does not have another candidate that can match the knowledge and passion that Senator Cruz has regarding the constitution. Senator Cruz is a very accomplished debater, and I’m sure he will be quite ready to clean the clock of any fool who wants to go there.
Let’s compare Cruz’s Birth Certificate with Obama’s see who is more eligible.
That's what some claim; however, they usually then point to naturalization law passed by Congress which defeats their argument on a philosophical level: if Congress is bound by the Constitution and cannot change it via normal acts (i.e. to change it requires amendment) then to apply naturalization law to your argument is to either declare the Constitution void of power or that the Congress has no constraints.
I agree it is a fact, it is also a fact that the cited abuses are defined "in US Law or USSC decisions" — two of the three items that was cited as being relevant. Contemporary of the writing of the time was Blackstone and his commentaries on the laws of England, they were very popular here (they sold out, in a time when books were expensive) and he used and explained/defined the term natural born subject
which did, in fact, require the parents to also be subjects.
I love liberty, that makes our overlords feel terror, therefore I am a terrorist.
[/semi-sarc]
I would literally punch a lib in the nose if, after Obama, he questioned a conservative candidate’s Natural Born Citizen status.
Quite agreed; but he was contemporaneous and there is some evidence that the founders read his commentaries on English law.
Without those, with respect to legality and constitutionality, you have nothing but your opinion and the opinion of Blackstone.
Except you miss one salient point: the Constitution was not written to be translated by lawyers and handed down to the people, but it was written in generally plainly understandable language so that every man might know what the government could and could not do. IOW, the opinion of myself [and every other American] is relevant. — As an example, if one could convince a large majority of the people that in all cases searches w/o warrants were unreasonable then the legal system would change [for the better, IMO] because of the 4th Amendment's requirements.
IIRC, Title 8, Section 1401 of the US Code includes as a natural-born citizen someone who was born outside the USA, but for whom both parents were US citizens, so long as one parent has lived inside the USA.
On that basis, Cruz would not be a natural born citizen, and thus ineligible.
HOWEVER.
The Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1952 (as amended by Congress in 2001) also stipulates that someone born outside the USA can be a natural-born citizen if all of the following requirements are met:
1) They were born between December 24, 1952 and November 14, 1986
2) The person’s parents were married at the time of birth
3) One of the person’s parents was a U.S. citizen when the person was born
4) The citizen parent lived at least ten years in the United States before the child’s birth
5) A minimum of 5 of these 10 years in the United States were after the citizen parent’s 14th birthday.
On this basis, Cruz would appear to be eligible. I suppose it all eventually comes down to the issue of which set of seemingly conflicting laws end up being controlling.
This.
Leaving aside the discussion of Cruz and eligibility and all that, it's frankly time that the American people started asserting the simplicity of the Constitution - that it not only is written in plain language, but that it was intended to be understood from that plain language.
It's time for us to start using 9th amendment based popular nullification - even if it has to be backed up with the threat of armed violence - to roll back much of what the courts have ruled.
Simply put, a court may, for instance, rule that it's perfectly okay for the police to steal cash from motorists without a warrant, without any evidence of wrong doing, etc. etc. In response, the people need to stand up and say, "No, the 4th amendment clearly says this. Your ruling is vacated." And back it up with whatever resistance, both civil and armed, is necessary to enforce that.
LOL -- Be prepared for some sore knuckles. ;)
Blackstone could be considered the “Christian” interpretation of law, wherein the words mean what they were objectively meant to mean at the time of their writing.
What we’re experiencing now is the “Evolutionary” interpretation of law, where, without actual modification of the wording of the law, the _meaning_ is morphed to match modern “interpretation”.
The problem with this line of reasoning is that it relies on a naturalization act, such acts are normal legislative acts and if such are allowed to define/redefine/modify the Constitution it defeats the purposes of having a Constitution which constrains the legislature. — Thus, to claim that such acts are applicable is to either destroy the sovereignty of the Constitution or to disqualify him from Natural Born Citizen.
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