Yes, there are some nut-job birthers, but you're labeling a whole group of FReepers who are genuinely concerned about a constitutional question. For the record, the official position of the U.S. government via the State Department's Foreign Affairs manual is as follows:
7 FAM 1131.6-2 Eligibility for PresidencyYes, Ted Cruz is a citizen, absolutely. He is a statutory citizen at birth born abroad to a U.S. citizen mother. Whether or not he is eligible to the presidency has not been established by the courts. I believe they would rule in his favor, but any debate on the matter is opinion. Both sides have presented relevant case law and historical legal opinions in support of their arguments.
(TL:CON-68; 04-01-1998)a. It has never been determined definitively by a court whether a person who acquired U.S. citizenship by birth abroad to U.S. citizens is a natural born citizen within the meaning of Article II of the Constitution and, therefore, eligible for the Presidency.
d. (snip) In any event, the fact that someone is a natural born citizen pursuant to a statute does not necessarily imply that he or she is such a citizen for Constitutional purposes.
The opinion of a lifetime bureaucrat from the department formerly headed by Hillary Clinton carries no weight.
What matters to me is whether we as Freepers are going to go to war on this issue in order that Chris Chrisie and Lindsey Graham will sneak in under the tent and grab the nomination.
If anyone is so willing to die on this hill and let the country slide further towards tyranny, then we should let them die on the vine before the battle begins.
Right now Free Republic appears to be THE gathering place for those who are so intent on dying on the NBC hill, even if it results in the destruction of our Liberty and taking as many people as they can down that road.
The issue is at best an esoteric exercise in the interpretation of an archaic expression which never had a uniform definition before the Constitution was drafted and is now even more subject to varied opinions as to what was meant. The clause was inserted to prevent a president from having divided loyalties. No one on this forum can possibly state that Ted Cruz, who was born in Canada while his parents were working under a US work Visa has ANY loyalty to the country of his birth. There is no possibility that the founders would have allowed the country to go to hell in order to prevent a person in the shoes of Ted Cruz from becoming President at a time such as this.
Ted Cruz is in every sense of the word a Natural Born Citizen of the United States of America. The burden to show otherwise is not only on those who claim otherwise, but if their arguments must legally rise to the level of Clear and Convincing proof that Ted Cruz is not included in the definition of NBC both in the literal sense of the words as they were understood at the time of the drafting of the constitution, but also that it was the intent of the framers to specifically exclude all citizens in the same situation as Ted Cruz, even if it meant that it would result in the election of someone who had no regard whatsoever for the preservation of the Constitution itself.
Ted Cruz may be our last best hope to save the Constitution. If we get an NBC like Chris Christie or Lindsey Graham, then the Constitution will surely find its final testing place as a dead letter.
Please note the next section which seems to have been added only 10 days ago. Some FReepers have postulated that statutory citizenship at birth abroad is “naturalization”, making Cruz ineligible. This note seems to say that he is.
It is very suspicious that this was added so recently. I suspect that FAM writers are lurking here.
7 FAM 1131.6-3 Not Citizens by “Naturalization”
(CT:CON-474; 08-19-2013)
Section 101(a)(23) INA (8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(23)) provides that the term “naturalization” means “the conferring of nationality of a state upon a person after birth, by any means whatsoever.” Persons who acquire U.S. citizenship at birth by birth abroad to a U.S. citizen parent or parents who meet the applicable statutory transmission requirements are not considered citizens by naturalization.