Posted on 08/30/2013 12:02:15 PM PDT by Jim Robinson
By Ilya Shapiro, Senior Fellow In Constitutional Sudies and Editor-In-Chief, Cato Supreme Court Review
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.”
So you avoid the facts but name call. I’m not a blogger, or anything else. I’m a logical, rational, sentient natural born American.
You know the truth but would rather insult than face facts. He’s a Canadian. It’s self-evident.
I don’t care how may Traitor John’s say the opposite. The truth is the truth.
Fool yourself if you must it’s your site.
So, you can weigh the legal arguments presented on the issue and come to a self-evident, logical conclusion, but when Jim weighs the legal arguments and comes to a conclusion different from yours, he is simply deluding himself?
In one single post you called Jim delusional, dishonest, and ignorant of the facts. Wow.
I’ve posted elsewhere that I like Ted Cruz, and I’ll repeat it here. I’ve already had my say about this issue, which anyone can search, so I’ll leave it at that: your site, your rules.
Shouldn’t you be hanging out with your friends at Fogbow?
Would the founders have agreed that a person who holds dual citizenship at birth by birth is a Natural Born Citizen of this nation?
“He never said he was a Canadian citizen.”
I guess that being born on Canadian soil thing is just a figment of my imagination then.
Just as long as he doesn’t admit being born on Canadian soil he’s not Canadian. Got it.
Are you a lawyer or not? Can you hold a candle to Mark Levin’s actual real life legal expertise going all the way back to the Reagan admin? Or did you learn all you think you know about the law by googling and reading birther blogs?
No. I would have to conceded that if the founders intended to include the children of citizens born abroad as Natual born citizens, then a later residency requirement passed by Congress limiting that right in accordance with a residency requirement would be extra constitutional.
After studying the 1790 Congressional act, I would have to conclude that Obama would qualify as a natural born citizen even if he were born in Kenya.
Yeah, probably. I mean, we’re so close and I spend so much time over there, you know. /s
If you think you are more an American than Ted Cruz, then make your case. It better be a good one.
Ted Cruz - 2016
You don’t see anything. Still waiting for you to clear up the mystery regarding your legal expertise. Why should anyone place more faith in your learned opinion than those of the author of this article or of Mark Levin’s.
Distract. Point in another direction. Look squirrel.
Is Cruz Canadian or not? It’s self evident. It’s self-evident. It’s self-evident. Could Cruz be drafted by Canada? Facts. Facts. Facts.
I apologize for not being Mark Levin. I apologize for being able to discern basic facts and logic on my own.
“It is the Canadian government (not Cruz) who has been saying that he’s also a Canadian citizen.”
Haha. That’s too funny. Yeah that goofy Canadian government. Thanks for the laugh.
You call Jim delusional, dishonest, and ignorant of the facts, but you're the one who's insulted? That's rich.
We're Americans. We make our own choices. We don't look to foreign laws for permission.
Ted Cruz has been an American citizen since his birth - a NBC.
Ted Cruz - 2016
Where was he born???
I was having a discussion with Mr. Robinson. I don’t know why you felt you needed to throw yourself into the discussion other than to throw fuel on the fire and mischaracterize my statements but kudos. You’ve accomplished your goal.
In other words, you have nothing. No legal expertise whatsoever. Can’t hold a candle to the author of this piece or to Mark Levin who appears to agree with it.
Come back and talk to me after you win your SCOTUS case.
Meanwhile, pardon me while I play through. Go, Cruz, GO!!
Oh, brother. Here we go.
I've been waiting for the birthers to claim that he was really born in Cuba and that his father is Fidel Castro.
No thanks. If you haven't yet figured out where Ted Cruz was born, just don't worry about it. Ted Cruz was born an American citizen - a NBC.
So, please, just go back to pounding on Obama!
Are you a complete idiot or do you just pretend to be one on the Internet?
We're done here. Have a nice day.
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