Ted Cruz was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, December 22, 1970, to a US citizen mother and a Cuban citizen father. He is a natural born citizen of Canada (Canadian Citizenship Act, R.S.C. 1970, c. C-19, s. 5(1,3)) and a naturalized US citizen (8 U.S.C. § 1401(g))
“Ted Cruz was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, December 22, 1970, to a US citizen mother and a Cuban citizen father. He is a natural born citizen of Canada (Canadian Citizenship Act, R.S.C. 1970, c. C-19, s. 5(1,3)) and a naturalized US citizen (8 U.S.C. § 1401(g))”
Good factual educational post Ray.
A child born abroad to two U.S. citizen parents acquires U.S. citizenship at birth under section 301(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) provided that one of the parents had a residence in the United States or one of its outlying possessions prior to the child’s birth.
He’s not naturalized. Because he was born to a US citizen, he has citizenship by birth; it is possible I think for his mother to have renounced that, in which case he may need to be naturalized. That might have been what happened to Granholm.
Note that neither parent was a citizen of Canada, where he was born. I do not know if Canada allows the born children of non-citizens to have birthright citizenship, but Cruz’s parents never claimed Canadian citizenship for him in either case. They also didn’t make him a Cuban citizen. So he had no dual nationality.
I think it is reasonable to question whether he meets the founder’s definition of “natural born citizen”. However, it has been clear throughout our history that the courts are not going to define that term, or invalidate elections based on that term.
We have had one president who was born on foreign soil already; we have had more than one president who had one parent who was not american.
My favorite question was this — if we decided to strictly enforce a natural-born requirement, requiring that both parents be american, AND that the child be born in the U.S., would that make it impossible for a child conceived from an anonymous sperm donor to be president, since we could not prove the father was american?