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Posted on 08/26/2013 1:51:55 PM PDT by SoConPubbie
This article appeared on Daily Caller on August 26, 2013.
As we head into a potential government shutdown over the funding of Obamacare, the iconoclastic junior senator from Texas — love him or hate him — continues to stride across the national stage. With his presidential aspirations as big as everything in his home state, by now many know what has never been a secret: Ted Cruz was born in Canada.
(Full disclosure: I’m Canadian myself, with a green card. Also, Cruz has been a friend since his days representing Texas before the Supreme Court.)
But does that mean that Cruz’s presidential ambitions are gummed up with maple syrup or stuck in snowdrifts altogether different from those plaguing the Iowa caucuses? Are the birthers now hoist on their own petards, having been unable to find any proof that President Obama was born outside the United States but forcing their comrade-in-boots to disqualify himself by releasing his Alberta birth certificate?
No, actually, and it’s not even that complicated; you just have to look up the right law. It boils down to whether Cruz is a “natural born citizen” of the United States, the only class of people constitutionally eligible for the presidency. (The Founding Fathers didn’t want their newly independent nation to be taken over by foreigners on the sly.)
What’s a “natural born citizen”? The Constitution doesn’t say, but the Framers’ understanding, combined with statutes enacted by the First Congress, indicate that the phrase means both birth abroad to American parents — in a manner regulated by federal law — and birth within the nation’s territory regardless of parental citizenship. The Supreme Court has confirmed that definition on multiple occasions in various contexts.
There’s no ideological debate here: Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe and former solicitor general Ted Olson — who were on opposite sides in Bush v. Gore among other cases — co-authored a memorandum in March 2008 detailing the above legal explanation in the context of John McCain’s eligibility. Recall that McCain — lately one of Cruz’s chief antagonists — was born to U.S. citizen parents serving on a military base in the Panama Canal Zone.
In other words, anyone who is a citizen at birth — as opposed to someone who becomes a citizen later (“naturalizes”) or who isn’t a citizen at all — can be president.
So the one remaining question is whether Ted Cruz was a citizen at birth. That’s an easy one. The Nationality Act of 1940 outlines which children become “nationals and citizens of the United States at birth.” In addition to those who are born in the United States or born outside the country to parents who were both citizens — or, interestingly, found in the United States without parents and no proof of birth elsewhere — citizenship goes to babies born to one American parent who has spent a certain number of years here.
That single-parent requirement has been amended several times, but under the law in effect between 1952 and 1986 — Cruz was born in 1970 — someone must have a citizen parent who resided in the United States for at least 10 years, including five after the age of 14, in order to be considered a natural-born citizen. Cruz’s mother, Eleanor Darragh, was born in Delaware, lived most of her life in the United States, and gave birth to little Rafael Edward Cruz in her 30s. Q.E.D.
So why all the brouhaha about where Obama was born, given that there’s no dispute that his mother, Ann Dunham, was a citizen? Because his mother was 18 when she gave birth to the future president in 1961 and so couldn’t have met the 5-year-post-age-14 residency requirement. Had Obama been born a year later, it wouldn’t have mattered whether that birth took place in Hawaii, Kenya, Indonesia, or anywhere else. (For those born since 1986, by the way, the single citizen parent must have only resided here for five years, at least two of which must be after the age of 14.)
In short, it may be politically advantageous for Ted Cruz to renounce his Canadian citizenship before making a run at the White House, but his eligibility for that office shouldn’t be in doubt. As Tribe and Olson said about McCain — and could’ve said about Obama, or the Mexico-born George Romney, or the Arizona-territory-born Barry Goldwater — Cruz “is certainly not the hypothetical ‘foreigner’ who John Jay and George Washington were concerned might usurp the role of Commander in Chief.”
It's the best explanation of the law surrounding this conundrum known as "natural born" citizen. Too many people want to turn it into some super-special, family-been-here-since-the-Mayflower condition.
But it's just what the author says: born a U.S. citizen. Didn't have to be naturalized. I hope we get this understanding out before primary time comes along. We'll have enough intra-party ugliness to contend with.
No, sorry but that does not sound correct.
Both parents’ citizenships at time of their baby’s birth are germane. In fact, it was the FATHER’s citizenship that carried the day back in the 1700’s (since the Mother’s citizenship was generally deemed to be conformed to the Father’s).
Best regards,
Ted Cruz will be getting 100% of the vote from my family guaranteed, we pay no attention to the birther crap any more.
And that means nothing. Where did you get the idea that both parents had to be citizens? It just is not the case. That Cruz was a citizen at birth with his mother's having satisfied the above conditions is enough.
Please cite the law that requires both parent to be citizens.
“having been unable to find any proof that President Obama was born outside the United States”
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Neither is there any proof that he was born INSIDE the United States of America, his so-called birth certificate is a digital prevarication. The burden should have been on him to prove he WAS born INSIDE the country.
Apparently, you have know idea what happened after that.
There is no proof obama was ever born at all.
ps:
I really like Senator Cruz.
I am only saying that he could be our Achilles’ heel.. the leftist mass media complex would crucify him if we nominated him.
(And they would continue to gloss over his predecessor’s problem... you know, “what difference does that make now, anyway!?”)
I like Cruz a lot. Can we make him Majority Leader in the Senate and find a clearly-eligible Cruz-style candidate for the Presidential nomination, perhaps?
Riddle me this. If you can establish who Barack 0bama's father was, what was his citizenship at the time of BHO's birth? Take your time.
/johnny
“This Thread’s For You” ping!
That’s a terrible reason to do wrong.
As someone here has pointed out, it’s very dangerous to destroy the law for convenience because the precedence can be used against us. Think about it.
“...Ted’s father,...”
So....he’s ineligible because of the sins of his father?? A guy who, for all intents and purposes has been an exemplary American for almost all of his life?
C’mon... A LOT of people believed in Castro before they realized he was communist piece of sh*t.
It doesn't get any better than this.........Wait! Wait! Wrong beer commercial.......
“I don’t really like jumping on bandwagons too quickly, Rubio, Ryan, sometimes they abandon Conservatives on big issues. That being said I like Ted Cruz and at this time find no one better. I too am disturbed about citizenship but it’s not my job or within my power to declare him elgible or inelgible and if the powers that be declare him elgible and he’s on the ballot I’ll support and vote for him. Again we can thank democrats for elgibility standards being clouded.”
I previously posted this comment and I see nothing here to change my opinion.
Ted Cruz is the real deal. He’s transcendent, unlike Obama, who’s a man of the times for the times. Cruz is the true antidote; an antitoxin for a body politic that’s really sick. Enough of Obama and his leeches.
Here's the nub, Ilya:
AMEND THE CONSTITUTION:
Strike the term "natural born" from the ONLY PLACE IT APPEARS to allow any citizen the privilege of running for the Office of President.
Until you do that Cruz and those like him will never qualify.
Cruz’s father’s only “sin” was fighting for freedom in Cuba.
He was old enough that his fight began at a young age against the dictator Bautista. He went to prison and was beaten and suffered much. He came to America to find a free land, opportunity, worked as a dishwasher in Austin, TX for 50 cents/hr 7 days/week. Put himself through UT, started his own business. Eventually became a church pastor. He is a great, inspirational speaker and he’s Ted’s hero.
Rafael Cruz despises Communists and Communism. He will fight tyranny whether Bautista’s kind or Castro’s kind, ‘til his last breath.
Somebody, anybody, tell me what his “sins” were, again??
Wanna bet?
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