Posted on 01/20/2016 6:57:04 AM PST by RC one
If Ted Cruz is a “natural-born citizen,†eligible to be president, what was all the fuss about Obama being born in Kenya? No one disputed that Obama’s mother was a U.S. citizen.
Cruz was born in Canada to an American citizen mother and an alien father. If he’s eligible to be president, then so was Obama — even if he’d been born in Kenya.
As with most constitutional arguments, whether or not Cruz is a “natural-born citizen†under the Constitution apparently comes down to whether you support Cruz for president. (Or, for liberals, whether you think U.S. citizenship is a worthless thing that ought to be extended to every person on the planet.)
Forgetting how corrupt constitutional analysis had become, I briefly believed lawyers who assured me that Cruz was a “natural-born citizen,†eligible to run for president, and “corrected†myself in a single tweet three years ago. That tweet’s made quite a stir!
But the Constitution is the Constitution, and Cruz is not a “natural-born citizen.†(Never let the kids at Kinko’s do your legal research.)
I said so long before Trump declared for president, back when Cruz was still my guy — as lovingly captured on tape last April by the Obama birthers (www.birtherreport.com/2015/04/shocker-anti-birther-ann-coulter-goes.html).
The Constitution says: “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.â€
The phrase “natural born†is a legal term of art that goes back to Calvin’s Case, in the British Court of Common Pleas, reported in 1608 by Lord Coke. The question before the court was whether Calvin — a Scot — could own land in England, a right permitted only to English subjects.
The court ruled that because Calvin was born after the king of Scotland had added England to his realm, Calvin was born to the king of both realms and had all the rights of an Englishman.
It was the king on whose soil he was born and to whom he owed his allegiance — not his Scottish blood — that determined his rights.
Not everyone born on the king’s soil would be “natural born.†Calvin’s Case expressly notes that the children of aliens who were not obedient to the king could never be “natural†subjects, despite being “born upon his soil.†(Sorry, anchor babies.) However, they still qualified for food stamps, Section 8 housing and Medicaid.
Relying on English common law for the meaning of “natural born,†the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly held that “the acquisition of citizenship by being born abroad of American parents†was left to Congress “in the exercise of the power conferred by the Constitution to establish an uniform rule of naturalization.†(U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898); Rogers v. Bellei (1971); Zivotofsky v. Kerry (2015), Justice Thomas, concurring.)
A child born to American parents outside of U.S. territory may be a citizen the moment he is born — but only by “naturalization,†i.e., by laws passed by Congress. If Congress has to write a law to make you a citizen, you’re not “natural born.â€
Because Cruz’s citizenship comes from the law, not the Constitution, as late as 1934, he would not have had “any conceivable claim to United States citizenship. For more than a century and a half, no statute was of assistance. Maternal citizenship afforded no benefit†— as the Supreme Court put it in Rogers v. Bellei (1971).
That would make no sense if Cruz were a “natural-born citizen†under the Constitution. But as the Bellei Court said: “Persons not born in the United States acquire citizenship by birth only as provided by Acts of Congress.†(There’s an exception for the children of ambassadors, but Cruz wasn’t that.)
So Cruz was born a citizen — under our naturalization laws — but is not a “natural-born citizen†— under our Constitution.
I keep reading the arguments in favor of Cruz being a “natural-born citizen,†but don’t see any history, any Blackstone Commentaries, any common law or Supreme Court cases.
One frequently cited article in the Harvard Law Review cites the fact that the “U.S. Senate unanimously agreed that Senator McCain was eligible for the presidency.†Sen. McCain probably was natural born — but only because he was born on a U.S. military base to a four-star admiral in the U.S. Navy, and thus is analogous to the ambassador’s child described in Calvin’s Case. (Sorry, McCain haters — oh wait! That’s me!) But a Senate resolution — even one passed “unanimously“! — is utterly irrelevant. As Justice Antonin Scalia has said, the court’s job is to ascertain “objective law,†not determine “some kind of social consensus,†which I believe is the job of the judges on “American Idol.†(On the other hand, if Congress has the power to define constitutional terms, how about a resolution declaring that The New York Times is not “speech“?)
Mostly, the Cruz partisans confuse being born a citizen with being a “natural born citizen.†This is constitutional illiteracy. “Natural born†is a legal term of art. A retired judge who plays a lot of tennis is an active judge, but not an “active judge†in legal terminology. The best argument for Cruz being a natural born citizen is that in 1790, the first Congress passed a law that provided: “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.†Except the problem is, neither that Congress, nor any Congress for the next 200 years or so, actually treated them like natural born citizens.
As the Supreme Court said in Bellei, a case about the citizenship of a man born in Italy to a native-born American mother and an Italian father: “It is evident that Congress felt itself possessed of the power to grant citizenship to the foreign born and at the same time to impose qualifications and conditions for that citizenship.†The most plausible interpretation of the 1790 statute is that Congress was saying the rights of naturalized citizens born abroad are the same as the rights of the natural born — except the part about not being natural born.
Does that sound odd? It happens to be exactly what the Supreme Court said in Schneider v. Rusk (1964): “We start from the premise that the rights of citizenship of the native born and of the naturalized person are of the same dignity, and are coextensive. The only difference drawn by the Constitution is that only the ’natural born’ citizen is eligible to be president. (Article II, Section 1)“
Unless we’re all Ruth Bader Ginsburg now, and interpret the Constitution to mean whatever we want it to mean, Cruz is not a “natural born citizen.†Take it like a man, Ted — and maybe President Trump will make you attorney general.
Obuma is the WORST pResident of American’s history, even beats Jimmy Carter, a Muslim and member of the Muslim Brotherhood, a gay person, and has ruined our Country from the inside out...a three year Senator from Chicago, who is nothing more than a ‘campaign speaker’...
But that didn't matter, people voted for him twice...so now here we are, OUR Country is in the worst shape it's been in for years, I think it's time for the Supreme Court to stand up and declare Obuma as a non-pResident and a fraud and impeach him with the help of the House and Senate, those that do not help, should be impeached from the States they represent and at least let Biden run the country for the remaining months, he couldn't do any worse!!!
Ted Cruz isn't a NBC of Canada because Canada says so, Ted Cruz is a NBC of Canada because he was born in Canada. period.
I've seen this argument a few times now. What is the legal authority for this?
Cruz is who I want as the next President.
That said, if we are to use a non-evolving Constitution as a basis, he is not a natural born citizen.
Quite the quandary.
Design Your Own Definition of “Natural Born” and Citizenship Requirements
[ ] birth anywhere on earth at any time
[ ] birth on U.S. soil in one of the 50 states
[ ] birth in a U.S. territory of _____, ______, _____, or _____
[ ] birth on a U.S. warship
[ ] birth on a U.S. sea vessel or air vessel or space vessel registered under U.S. flag
[ ] birth at a U.S. embassy or _____ in a foreign land
[ ] birth at a U.S. military facility in a foreign land
[ ] birth in U.S. zone of Panama Canal
[ ] birth in U.S. shared zone of Antartica
[ ] birth on foreign soil while a parent serving in U.S. military in that land
[ ] birth into U.S. slavery prior to 1865 (or whatever the correct emancipation year)
[ ] birth into U.S. Indian tribe prior to year 18__ (insert the correct year)
[ ] mother is a U.S. citizen
[ ] mother is a U.S. citizen, while also a citizen of one or more other nations
[ ] mother is a U.S. citizen, while also a citizen of another nation, where that nation asserts mother can have NO other citizenship claims
[ ] mother is a U.S. citizen, while another nation claims mother as a subject
[ ] mother is a U.S. citizen, while a citizen of no other nation, and with no other nation claiming subject
[ ] mother is not a U.S. citizen
[ ] mother is not a U.S. citizen, but has open, pending, citizenship application
[ ] mother is not a U.S. citizen, but has legally resided on U.S. soil for ____ days/years
[ ] mother is not a U.S. citizen, but has (illegally) resided on U.S. soil for ____ days/years
[ ] father is a U.S. citizen
[ ] father is a U.S. citizen, while...
[ ] father is a U.S. citizen, while...
[ ] father is a U.S. citizen, while...
[ ] father is a U.S. citizen, while...
[ ] father is not a U.S. citizen
[ ] father is not a U.S. citizen, but...
[ ] father is not a U.S. citizen, but...
[ ] father is not a U.S. citizen, but...
Did I miss anything?
Bunch of crap, Bud. And Ann herself is LYING now, b/c she herself said Ted was eligible, after saying a couple years ago that he had a “problem” with it.
I really think that some conservatives are suicidal. Yeah, go ahead and vote for one of Rotten’s big financial donors over Ted!
The constitution is not non evolving. It can evolve via the amendment process which is what this issue will require. The quandary is deep and complex. The best solution is to support Trump and avoid the quandary altogether.
That we are having this dialectic at all is more evidence of the accelerated dumbing down of America. A Natural born citizen is someone born into the allegiance of the sovereign that holds dominion over the child’s birth place.
They have no choice but to discredit Cruz’s eligibility since Trump is abysmally vacant on the issues and consistently on the wrong side politically.
Did she renounce her citizenship? No. Ted is American. Simple, unless you choose to muddle it. If the Founders were that STUPID to believe that Ted Cruz’s situation should make him ineligible, then maybe we would be wise to ignore them. Because your position makes no sense whatsoever.
She was basing her opinion on the Katyal and Clement Harvard law review paper which has been shown to be full of errors. I thought she discussed this in the article.
Baloney. The citizenship laws of all nations has play in a citizenship determination.
When Cruz was born, Canada had a claim him because he was born in Canada of people who were legal permanent residents of Canada. He is not an NBC of Canada because other countries had recognizable claims on his citizenship.
When Cruz was born, the US had a claim on him by operation of an Act of Congress.
When Cruz was born, Cuba had a claim on him by Cuban law.
The US and Cuban claims stand in the eyes of all countries, with equal validity. It was only acts subsequent to his birth that made Ted more a citizen of the US than a citizen of Cuba. But we don't look to action subsequent to find NBC. We look to the circumstances of birth.
Cruz was naturalized. His citizenship depends on an Act of Congress. Of course there was no naturalization ceremony. Babies lack the reasoning capability to make choices of that nature.
The supreme law of the US is the US Constitution. Not not English common law, not Canadian law, not any other law, dictionary or other material. Therefore it is irrelevant to the discussion.
So starting with the US Constitution, Article I Section 8 specifically enumerates Congress and only Congress with the power over the rules of naturalization. That includes ALL rules. Who is a citizen, who can become a citizen, who is a citizen at birth (naturally born a citizen).
Congress, through a series of acts starting with the naturalization act of 1790 through to current law, has expressed it’s will under the authority as detailed in Article I Section 8. In addition to the various amendments that impact the law (14th amendment for example), Congress’s authority with regards who is born a citizen and does not need naturalization, is expressed in Title 8 Section 1401.
so now the argument is “our founders were stupid” and “we would be wise to ignore them”? That sounds like something I would read on democratic underground from someone who probably didn’t manage to graduate from high school and spent their life smoking weed and wearing Che t shirts.
Bunch of bull. Where in the Founders’ writings does it show that if a Jefferson child, for example, was born on foreign soil, it would make the child ineligible?
The naturalization act includes a requirement that citizen parent have resided in the US for five years after the citizen parent reaches the age of 14. Obama’s mother couldn’t have done this before she was 19, and Obama was born when she was 18.
Since the US Constitution is the supreme law of the US, please site in the constitution where “The citizenship laws of all nations has play in a citizenship determination.”
Let me give you a hint - you wont find it.
What you will find is Article I Section 8 gives/enumerates EXCLUSIVE authority to Congress to set the rules of naturalization. That includes who is a citizen at birth and does not need naturalization (naturally born a citizen).
If he was born in the US, he is not an NBC, but the argument is completely different from the one associated with Cruz, who is not NBC because he was naturalized at birth by operation of an Act of Congress.
you are making stuff up. The supreme court recognizes the common law as being the basis to understanding the constitution and the common law says a natural born citizen is someone born into allegiance of a particular sovereign holding dominion over the place of birth. Ted cruz was born into the allegiance of Canada and that makes him a NBC and that’s why the Canadian law defines him as a NBC. I can easily show you a dozen statements pulled out of supreme court opinions that support this reality.
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