Posted on 08/13/2013 3:12:38 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Via Mediaite and MFP, forget the legal niceties about what “natural born” might or should mean and look at this from a court’s perspective. Realistically, no judge is going to disqualify a national figure who stands a real chance of being the nominee of one of the two major parties unless the law leaves them no wiggle room to rule otherwise. Tens of millions of Americans would be willing to vote for Ted Cruz; to strike him from the ballot on a technicality in an ambiguous case would be momentously undemocratic. Against that backdrop, the Supreme Court would almost certainly end up reading “natural born” in the narrowest way, excluding anyone who was born abroad of two non-citizen parents but including everyone else. Cruz, who was born in Canada but whose mother was a U.S. citizen, would qualify, not only for the reason Ace gives here but more broadly because courts don’t want to be seen as hard-ass enforcers of what’s perceived by many to be an unusually archaic bit of the Constitution. They’ll dump a true foreigner because they have to. They don’t have to dump the son of an American citizen like Cruz, so they won’t. Take it to the bank.
But never mind that. Given the angst and ambiguity over the “natural born” clause in the last two cycles, why not pass an amendment to replace it with something like, say, a 25-year residency requirement? The point of the clause was to make sure that rich foreigners couldn’t cross the ocean and buy their way into the presidency, which wasn’t a baseless concern for a group of former British subjects who worried about loyalists to the throne subverting the revolution. In practice, though, it means that someone who’s born on U.S. soil but lives their entire life abroad, only to return and run for president decades later, is constitutionally more trustworthy than someone like Cruz who was born abroad but has lived his entire life here. Does anyone question whether Ted Cruz, decades later, might be more loyal to Canada than to the U.S.? Right at this moment, House Republicans are gearing up to pass a variation of the DREAM Act that would grant citizenship to illegals who were brought here at a young age by their parents on the theory that the place where you’re raised is more likely to shape your patriotic loyalty than the happenstance of your birth. If those kids are trustworthy enough to help decide at the polls who the president should be, why shouldn’t they be eligible for the presidency themselves? In a democracy, the president is, or should be, drawn from the citizenry. People who take certain draconian disqualifying actions, like committing felonies, are an exception, but what action has Cruz taken? Replace “natural born” with a residency requirement, which gives people the power to prove their loyalty, and you solve that problem.
(VIDEO-AT-LINK)
“The law says that he is a born US citizen.”
The law says that he is a born Canadian citizen. This is a fact - he was born in Canada.
Again - you are opening a door that will not easily be closed. Do you want to be governed in perpetuity by those born abroad?
If Americans themselves are not willing to demand a fellow American govern them than what hope lies with the Republic?
They are American citizens for sure. But they are NOT natural born citizens, which requires two parents who are both American citizens at the time of birth and the birth must occur withing the United States or a territory under its control.
“Canal Zone being under US control at that time is irrelevant to the citizenship situation”
Sez who? You?
No, it is significant. Those born on American soil, (of which the Canal Zone is such), are natural born Americans.
The reason for this is because they possess one citizenship, not two. Cruz is a Canadian citizen. No matter what happens to him - he will always have the natural right to live in his home country - Canada.
Do you want to be governed by a Canadian citizen? I like Cruz, but I do not believe he should be president. The presidency should be reserved for Americans born in America.
He was born in a foreign country.
His mother "passed" her "citizenship" on to him because of 1 (one) reason.
The particular Congressional statute that existed at the time of his birth, stipulating the specitics in which he could inherit his mother's U.S. citizenship while in a foreign land and under a foreign jurisdiction.
Congressional statute.
Since Congress does not have the Constitutional power to write laws on who may be a "Natural Born citizen", he's not one.
Congress does, however, have the power (and only the power) of naturalization. It's in the Constitution.
Foreign born Cruz is a naturalized U.S. citizen.
Without that Congressinoal law, he isn't even a U.S. citizen at birth.
Foreign born Cruz is clearly not eligible.
Conservatives who promote inelligible Cruz for the Presidency, are trying to subvert the Constitutional requirement for the office and are litterally no better than the progressives and RINO's who pushed the ineligible usurping Obama on the country.
Country and Constitution 1st.
Party politics 2nd.
The only relevant fact is that Cruz, John McCain, and any child born overseas to members of our military are considered by US Law to be automatic citizens.
Any other interpretation is insignificant due to the law being very clear. Anything else is simply armchair theorizing with zero force of law.
I rather doubt that.
Yes, he was born in Canada. But under Canadian law, he would not be a Canadian citizen because his parents weren't Canadian citizens. Canada has different citizenship and nationality laws than the USA.
I understand that you are using semantics (as is as natural as breathing to Obots) to muddy the waters. The hospital's counsel advised the letter to come down because they were using it to fundraise, when Kapi'olani has NEVER confirmed that "Obama" was actually born in thier facility. Even the brochure's image of the letter only contains the caption "President Barack Obama sent this official congratulatory message, read by Congressman Abercrombie."
If you've got a link where anyone in the hospital's administration, in their official capacity, fesses up to "Obama" being born in their facility, I'd like to see it, because I haven't, in all the time I've been studying this issue.
Obot.
Any other interpretation is insignificant due to the law being very clear. Anything else is simply armchair theorizing with zero force of law."
Who wrote that law that governed his birth status in a foreign country, and what Constitutional power do they have?
No. I support Ted Cruz.
Canadian laws will not be used to dictate to us who we can elect as our president. Just stick with our Constitution and don't let the Canadians confuse you. They can do what they want on their side of the border (except call us bad names!).
Sorry, but I don’t consider that a trial on the merits of the case. The judge relied on precedents in decisions that were unrelated to Presidential eligibility.
The courts played this game for decades in 2nd Amendment cases. The Supreme avoided making an actual decision for political reasons, letting lower courts misinterpret decisions that were only tangentially related, and in many cases were flat wrong. It went on for so long that gun control proponents were calling it “settled law”.
DC v. Heller finally put a stop to it. There was no change to the Constitution. The Court finally considered the plain language in the context and era it was written, and concluded what every honest person knew all along.
Until enough Supreme Court justices have the courage to take on this case, and competent plaintiffs present it (unlike the circus in GA), this case will not be heard on the merits.
You apparently aren’t satisfied with the levels of moral and economic depravity that political folks (all sides socialist) have sunk to, and I can see that we have much farther to fall. Get back to me with competent public affairs speech, when the pensions are gone. Our nation and Constitution are important to me, while both political parties have shown that they are trash.
Yes, there are no Canadian laws like official bilingualism, single payer health care, gay marriage.
The problem is not Cruz, the problem is the precedent. We already are seeing America being taken down the exact same path as Canada (with about a 10 year or so delay.
Enough is enough. If I wanted to be governed by Canadians, I’d go live there. I like Cruz, but not as president. I would rather have a plain, simple American.
Where you are correct it doesn’t make you a “Troll”.
“I rather doubt that.”
You rather doubt what? That he was born in Canada, and that he’s a Canadian citizen at birth?
“But under Canadian law, he would not be a Canadian citizen”
You are wrong here. He is a Canadian citizen by his birthright of being born in Canada. Canada awards citizenship to everyone who is born on Canadian soil.
“Canada has different citizenship and nationality laws than the USA.”
Canadian law grants citizenship at birth to those born in Canada. Cruz is a citizen of Canada.
He’s a Canadian citizen from birth. You might want to ask the founders what they thought about foreign born governance.
While I’ve made it clear I do NOT buy the Odumbo isn’t eligible meme, Rubio is eligible as his mother was American and he was therefore an American citizen when born.
You’re either a willful idiot or a troll. First of all Rubio’s parents were Cuban citizens when he was born.
http://www.wnd.com/2012/06/rubio-autobiography-proves-hes-not-eligible-for-vp/
Rubio autobiography proves he’s not eligible for VP?
“My parents had lived in America for nearly two decades. It was clear that Cuba had become a thoroughly totalitarian state, and would likely remain so for some time. They had endured many disappointments, and their lives would never be easy. But slowly and surely they made a better life for our family than they had had as children, or could have ever been possible for them in Cuba. Three of their children were born Americans. Mario [the Senator’s older brother, born in Cuba] had naturalized after returning from the army. And in 1975, they, too, became citizens of the United States.”
I remember your name, I vote troll.
Congress and the Constitution gives them power over the area of naturalization and citizenship.
Art I, Sect 8 says, among other powers: The Congress shall have Power ....To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;
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