Ted Cruz is not eligible to be president

Washington Post ^ | 1/12/16 | Mary Brigid McManamon

[RC one]

Donald Trump is actually right about something: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) is not a natural-born citizen and therefore is not eligible to be president or vice president of the United States.

Cruz is, of course, a U.S. citizen. As he was born in Canada, he is not natural-born. His mother, however, is an American, and Congress has provided by statute for the naturalization of children born abroad to citizens. Because of the senator’s parentage, he did not have to follow the lengthy naturalization process that aliens without American parents must undergo. Instead, Cruz was naturalized at birth. This provision has not always been available. For example, there were several decades in the 19th century when children of Americans born abroad were not given automatic naturalization.

[RC one]

I have not looked as closely at them. If it becomes necessary to evaluate their candidacy more seriously, I’m sure it will be done. personally, I wish we would unite to slam this door shut, lock it up tight, throw away the key, and nail it shut for good measure.

[Yosemitest]

Notice they never stop, because they work for the "ESTABLISHMENT REPUBLICANS" !
And the "ESTABLISHMENT REPUBLICANS" LOATHE TED CRUZ for telling the TRUTH !
But they're full of CRAP !
TED CRUZ is by far, the MOST CONSERVATIVE CANDIDATE we've got !

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,

1st United States Congress, 21-26 Senators and 59-65 Representatives

As Hans von Spakovsky wrote in his Commentary "An Un-Naturally Born Non-Controversy":

... The Constitution, federal law, and the historical understanding of the Framers, as well as prior British legal traditions and law, all support this view.
In a recent article in the Harvard Law Review, two former U.S. Solicitor Generals, Paul Clement (who served under President George W. Bush) and Neal Katyal (who served under President Barack Obama) stated:

All the sources routinely used to interpret the Constitution confirm that the phrase “natural born Citizen” has a specific meaning:
namely, someone who was a U.S. citizen at birth
with no need to go through a naturalization proceeding at some later time.
And Congress has made equally clear from the time of the framing of the Constitution to the current day that,
subject to certain residency requirements on the parents,
someone born to a U.S. citizen parent generally becomes a U.S. citizen without regard to whether the birth takes place in Canada, the Canal Zone, or the continental United States.

Thus, former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger would not be eligible to run for president
because the Austrian native had to go through the naturalization process to become a U.S. citizen.

Certainly the Framers of the Constitution held this view of “natural born” citizen.
They had a deep understanding of British common law and applied its precepts, particularly as explained in Blackstone’s Commentaries, throughout the Constitution.
The U.S. Supreme Court in Smith v. Alabama (1888) recognized that
“the interpretation of the Constitution of the United States is necessarily influenced by the fact that
its provisions are framed in the language of the English common law,
and are to be read in the light of its history.”

Senator Cruz meets all three qualifications in the Constitution to be the president of the United States
if the American people make that choice.

One of those precepts of British law was
that children born to British citizens anywhere in the world,
even outside the dominions of the British Empire,
were “natural born” citizens of the Empire
who owed their allegiance to the Crown.
This historical understanding is explained in great detail by the Supreme Court in a well-known 1898 case, U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark.

The First Congress, which included many of the Framers of the Constitution, codified this view of a natural born citizen.
A mere three years after the Constitution was drafted, they passed the Naturalization Act of 1790,
which specified that the children of U.S. citizens born
“out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born Citizens.”
The modern version of this Act is found at 8 U.S.C. §1401.
It contains a list of all individuals who are considered “nationals and citizens of the United States at birth.”
Paragraph (g) includes:

A person born outside the geographical limits of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is an alien,
and the other a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, was physically present in the United States or its outlying possessions
for a period or periods totaling not less than five years,
at least two of which were after attaining the age of fourteen years. 

Ted Cruz was born in Canada in 1970;
his mother, who was a U.S. citizen by birth from Delaware, was in her 30s at the time.
She met Cruz’s father, who was born in Cuba, as a student at Rice University.
These facts show that
Cruz’s family background clearly meets the standard set out in the federal statute for being a natural born citizen who did not have to go through any naturalization process to become a citizen.;
That was also the case for Senator Barry Goldwater, who was born in Arizona before it became a state,
and Governor George Romney, who was born in Mexico.

The bottom line is that Senator Cruz meets all three qualifications in the Constitution to be the president of the United States if the American people make that choice.
The same is true of my wife, who was born in Manila.
Her father, whose family had been in America since shortly after the Pilgrims got to Massachusetts,
was temporarily working abroad for an American company—just like Ted Cruz’s father.

My wife is not likely to run for president,
but there is no question that she—like Ted Cruz, Barry Goldwater, George Romney, and John McCain—is eligible to be president
and to swear an oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”


Hans A. von Spakovsky is a a former commissioner on the Federal Election Commission and Justice Department lawyer. 
He is the coauthor of “Who’s Counting? How Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote at Risk”(Encounter 2012)
and  “Obama’s Enforcer: Eric Holder’s Justice Department” (HarperCollins/Broadside 2014).

The Naturalization Act of 1790, let's read it , too ( even though it DOES NOT APPLY) !

United States Congress, "An act to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization" (March 26, 1790).

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled,
That any Alien being a free white person,
who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years,
may be admitted to become a citizen thereof on application to any common law Court of record in any one of the States
wherein he shall have resided for the term of one year at least,
and making proof to the satisfaction of such Court  that
he is a person of good character,
and taking the oath or affirmation prescribed by law
to support the Constitution of the United States,
which Oath or Affirmation such Court shall administer,
and the Clerk of such Court shall record such Application, and the proceedings thereon;
and thereupon such person shall be considered as a Citizen of the United States. 


And the children of such person so naturalized,
dwelling within the United States,
being under the age of twenty one years at the time of such naturalization,
shall also be considered as citizens of the United States. 

And the children of citizens of the United States that may be born beyond Sea, or out of the limits of the United States,
shall be considered as natural born Citizens: 
Provided, that
the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States: 
Provided also, that
no person heretofore proscribed by any States, shall be admitted a citizen as aforesaid,
except by an Act of the Legislature of the State in which such person was proscribed.


1802 Naturalization Act, SEC 4 (Approved April 14 1802 US Statutes at Large Vol 2 pp 153-155)
This is about 1/3 of the way down the pdf file.
Start at the middle of page 153 and go thru to Page 155.

Also, Read this summary on the 'U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Laws and Issues: A Documentary History - Congress passes a law that sets the tone for naturalization laws for over a century'.
In 1798, the law on naturalization was changed again.
The Federalists feared that many new immigrants favored their political foes, the Democratic-Republicans.
The Federalists, therefore, wanted to reduce the political influence of immigrants.
To do so, the Federalists, who controlled Congress, passed a law
that required immigrants to wait fourteen years before becoming naturalized citizens and thereby gaining the right to vote.
The 1798 act also barred naturalization for citizens of countries at war with the United States.
At the time, the United States was engaged in an unofficial, undeclared naval war with France.
The French government thought the United States had taken the side of Britain in the ongoing conflict between Britain and France.
A related law passed in 1798, the Alien Enemy Act, gave the president the power during a time of war to arrest or deport any alien thought to be a danger to the government.

After Jefferson became president (in 1801), the 1798 naturalization law was repealed, or overturned (in 1802).
The basic provisions of the original 1790 law WERE RESTORED except for the period of residency before naturalization.
The residency requirement, that is, the amount of time the immigrant had to reside, or live, in the United States, was put back to five years, as it had been in 1795.
The 1802 law remained the basic naturalization act until 1906, with two notable exceptions.
In 1855, the wives of American citizens were automatically granted citizenship.
In 1870, people of African descent could become naturalized citizens, in line with constitutional amendments passed after the American Civil War (1861-65)
that banned slavery and gave African American men the right to vote.
Other laws were passed to limit the number of people (if any) allowed to enter the United States from different countries,
especially Asian countries, but these laws did not affect limits on naturalization.

Within a decade of adopting the Constitution, immigration, and naturalization in particular, had become hot political issues.
They have remained political issues for more than two centuries.

Did you know ...

Naturalization laws relate to the process of immigrants becoming a citizen.
Other laws have provided for losing citizenship -
- by getting married!
In 1907, Congress passed a law that said a woman born in the United States (and therefore a citizen) would lose her citizenship
if she married an alien (who was therefore not a citizen).
In 1922, two years after women won the right to vote,
this provision was repealed and a woman's citizenship status was separated from her husband's.

[WhiskeyX]

“Because you can’t be a natural born citizen of a country that doesn’t exist yet?”

Yes, you can in the same way in which you are born into a family. All human societies descend from earlier human societies and inherit allegiances, in the same way new families are created and transfer their allegiances from their parental families to their own families. This is also true in certain forms when a new state becomes alienated from its parents state. This is a well established principle in the Law of Nations and is discussed by such authorities as Grotius, a source often cited in past international legal proceedings.

“If there was no nation yet, how could anyone born before the constitution have been born a citizen, regardless of where they were born?”

“People born here were born British subjects, not American citizens.”

First, note the fact that the United States of America dates its sovereignty to the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and not the later adoption of the Articles of Confederation or adoption of the Constitution so many years later.

Second, the statement: “People born here were born British subjects, not American citizens.” is incorrect. The people born in the English/British North American colonies were subjects of the English or British sovereign, and they were not subjects of the Kingdom of England or the United Kingdom of Great Britain. These people were also “American citizens” in the sense that before the Plantation Act of 1740 they were citizens of their respective colonies, and after the Plantation Act of 1740 they were also made to be citizens of British America, the possession/s of the English/British Crown as their feudal properties. When King George III attempted to abrogate those colonial charters, usurp their governments, and put the colonial governments under the authority of the foreign Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain in London, it sparked the American Revolutionary War in resistance to those usurpations. Upon independence, the colonists were alienated from their allegiance to King George III, but they were never a possession of the United Kingdom of Great Britain to begin with. The colonists retained their community ties and citizenship in their colonies and in whatever parts of British America won independence from King George III. When King George III signed the Treaty of Paris in 1783, he agreed to alienate the American colonies from his feudal domains, They remained as citizens of their respective colonies and of the former British America that became the new United States of America. So, yes the American colonists were American citizens of the colonies possessed as a feudal property by the king before the Revolution and possessed by the American people after the Revolution.

[RummyChick]

Just so freepers realize ... they are siding with the the
Ginsburg side of the court not Scalia side when they are willing to ignore conservative constructionism.

[PA-RIVER]

A Canadian born Citizen to a Cuban Dad is not a natural born US citizen?

Blasphemy!

[RummyChick]

And you continue to leave out that Madison repealed the 1790 Act.

[hawaiianninja]

Barak Obama taught constitutional law, too. I’m just sayin’.

[PA-RIVER]

There is a bright side to electing cruz.

If he wins, we can fly canadian flags in front of our houses just to piss off the GOPe and the Democrats. That would be fun, rubbing it in their faces after eight years of the Indonesia clown.

[Rockingham]

This is one of those issues on which plain textualism (that under current statutes, Cruz was a citizen at birth) works better than a crabbed sense of original intent, which leads to the claim that Cruz is not a "natural born citizen" because his mother but not his father was a US citizen when he was born. This is based on a detailed if disputed reading of British law at the time as limiting British citizenship for those born abroad to those whose father's were British citizens when they were born.

I am confident that of the legislators who ratified the Constitution, not one in a hundred would have known enough to state that as being what "natural born citizen" meant and that Congress could not further define and expand natural born citizenship for purposes of eligibility for President.

In such cases, where the original meaning of a provision of the Constitution is so disputed and thinly supported by evidence, textualism makes more sense. After all, the Framers of the Constitution not only specified "natural born citizen" but also provided that Congress would have the power to define citizenship as to who would be a natural born citizen.

On the whole, if the question were presented in the Founding era, I think that most of the Framers and Ratifiers of the Constitution would reject the view that, as to Presidential eligibility, the meaning in the Constitution of "natural born citizen" was firmly fixed by the law of Britain and could not be changed by future Congressional enactments as to who was a citizen at birth. With that in mind, we have the making of an argument that not just textualism but originalism as well supports Ted Cruz's eligibility to be President.

[PA-RIVER]

Maybe we could fly the Cuban flag too.

[PA-RIVER]

It’s not fair to point out the holes in Teds legal argument for NBC that are so big you could fly an airbus through them.

[RummyChick]

If you believe that congress can define it then you MUST also admit in the same writing that they repealed the one and only time they have used those .words. Madison is the one that repealed it.

[RC one]

You should read post 158 and get back to me. Keep in mind, William Rawle was a founding father and he was very very clear on what a NBC is as evidenced by the few paragraphs I have provided from his book, A view of the Constitution of the United States.

As far as I'm concerned, Mr. Rawle has provided us all with the answer we seek and it is game over for Ted Cruz. He needs to withdraw. Now.

[Cboldt]

The meaning of the term "citizen" is stated in the constitution. Whether or not it has some relation to the law of Britain is an interesting subject, but it doesn't change what is actually in the constitution.

The framers would have referred to the constitution, assuming they intended to comply with its terms, and follow where it leads.

First find Cruz to be a citizen, without resort to an act of Congress. If that is established, the argument can proceed to whether or not he is a natural born citizen under the terms of the constitution. But first, it needs to be established that he is a citizen under the constitution, without resort to any act of Congress.

I am beyond angry with Cruz on this point.

[freedomjusticeruleoflaw]

True. But give some here credit for pointing out LOOOOOONG ago that this would be an issue.

[Yosemitest]

YOU can NOT read, can you

RE=READ that comment starting at:

Also, Read this summary on the 'U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Laws and Issues: A Documentary History - Congress passes a law that sets the tone for naturalization laws for over a century'.
In 1798, the law on naturalization was changed again.
The Federalists feared that many new immigrants favored their political foes, the Democratic-Republicans.
The Federalists, therefore, wanted to reduce the political influence of immigrants.
To do so, the Federalists, who controlled Congress, passed a law
that required immigrants to wait fourteen years before becoming naturalized citizens and thereby gaining the right to vote.
The 1798 act also barred naturalization for citizens of countries at war with the United States.
At the time, the United States was engaged in an unofficial, undeclared naval war with France.
The French government thought the United States had taken the side of Britain in the ongoing conflict between Britain and France.
A related law passed in 1798, the Alien Enemy Act, gave the president the power during a time of war to arrest or deport any alien thought to be a danger to the government.

After Jefferson became president (in 1801), the 1798 naturalization law was repealed, or overturned (in 1802).
The basic provisions of the original 1790 law WERE RESTORED except for the period of residency before naturalization.
The residency requirement, that is, the amount of time the immigrant had to reside, or live, in the United States, was put back to five years, as it had been in 1795.
The 1802 law remained the basic naturalization act until 1906, with two notable exceptions.
In 1855, the wives of American citizens were automatically granted citizenship.
In 1870, people of African descent could become naturalized citizens, in line with constitutional amendments passed after the American Civil War (1861-65)
that banned slavery and gave African American men the right to vote.
Other laws were passed to limit the number of people (if any) allowed to enter the United States from different countries,
especially Asian countries, but these laws did not affect limits on naturalization.

Maybe, just MAYBE, after the SECOND TIME you RE-READ IT, you might be able to comprehend WORDS !
But I doubt it, because you can NOT get past that HOT-HEADED TEMPER of yours.

[freedomjusticeruleoflaw]

Obfuscation to avoid the simple facts.

[RC one]

read this buddy.

Williams Rawle: A view of the Constitution of the United States

Article 1, Section 8, Clause 4 (Citizenship)

Document 23

William Rawle, A View of the Constitution of the United States 84-101 1829 (2d ed.)

It cannot escape notice, that no definition of the nature and rights of citizens appears in the Constitution. The descriptive term is used, with a plain indication that its meaning is understood by all, and this indeed is the general character of the whole instrument. Except in one instance, it gives no definitions, but it acts in all its parts, on qualities and relations supposed to be already known. Thus it declares, that 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--that no person shall be a senator who shall not have been nine years a citizen of the United States, nor a representative who has not been such a citizen seven years, and it will therefore be not inconsistent with the scope and tendency of the present essay, to enter shortly into the nature of citizenship.

In a republic the sovereignty resides essentially, and entirely in the people. Those only who compose the people, and partake of this sovereignty are citizens, they alone can elect, and are capable of being elected to public offices, and of course they alone can exercise authority within the community: they possess an unqualified right to the enjoyment of property and personal immunity, they are bound to adhere to it in peace, to defend it in war, and to postpone the interests of all other countries to the affection which they ought to bear for their own.

The citizens of each state constituted the citizens of the United States when the Constitution was adopted. The rights which appertained to them as citizens of those respective commonwealths, accompanied them in the formation of the great, compound commonwealth which ensued. They became citizens of the latter, without ceasing to be citizens of the former, and he who was subsequently born a citizen of a state, became at the moment of his birth a citizen of the United States. Therefore every person born within the United States, its territories or districts, whether the parents are citizens or aliens, is a natural born citizen in the sense of the Constitution, and entitled to all the rights and privileges appertaining to that capacity. It is an error to suppose, as some (and even so great a mind as Locke) have done, that a child is born a citizen of no country and subject of no government, and that he so continues till the age of discretion, when he is at liberty to put himself under what government he pleases. How far the adult possesses this power will hereafter be considered, but surely it would be unjust both to the state and to the infant, to withhold the quality of the citizen until those years of discretion were attained. Under our Constitution the question is settled by its express language, and when we are informed that, excepting those who were citizens, (however the capacity was acquired,) at the time the Constitution was adopted, no person is eligible to the office of president unless he is a natural born citizen, the principle that the place of birth creates the relative quality is established as to us.

Game. Over.

[RummyChick]

Again, legally, the Act was repealed. You clearly have no concept what that means. Abrogated. Finished. Dead. Null and void. Whatever came later is the law. If you pass a law years later that is similar and you leave something out ..that left out part doesn’t become law. Sheesh.

[hoosiermama]

Unfortunately for CRUZ that would be in a court of law. It appears the Texas GOP has that in its plan Read the entire article Fraud for not Telly the people of is Canadian citizenship. He really needs to find the documentation where his mother registered him as a US citizen at the time of his birth.