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.”
This guy spells it out pretty clearly. I really do not see what the discussion is about. Citizens are either natural citizens or they have been naturalized. Of course then you have the tweeners who come here illegally and suck off the teat of the 45% of us earning a living.
Cruz has never admitted that he's a Canadian citizen. Your statement is false.
Cruz has never admitted that he's a Canadian citizen. Your statement is false.
I didn’t mischaracterize anything you said. When you insult someone I care about, you offend me also.
How’s that Obamacare SCOTUS ruling working out for you? How’s that Roe vs. Wade SCOTUS ruling working out for you?
How’s that Kelo SCOTUS ruling working out for you?
SCOTUS or Mark Levin can say the sky is purple it doesn’t change the truth.
He’s Canadian. You won’t even admit that. Too funny.
Your site. You get the last word. I’m done with this conversation.
I’m sorry — was that too hard of a question for you??
Why can’t you answer it???
Wiki says that he was born in Calgary, Alberta. Is that correct???
Cruz was born in Calgary, Alberta Canada.
“Cruz has never admitted that he’s a Canadian citizen. Your statement is false.”
I guess that whole thing about being born in Canada is a figment of my imagination.
Your statement is laughable.
Ohhh give me a break -- what slop
You were deliberately trying to stir the flames.
We all saw it.
Yeah, sure. Right.
Not very well on ObamaCare. Not very well on Roe v Wade. And it won’t work out very well on Birthers, Inc. v Cruz, either.
He’s an American.
And, yes, it is my site. How nice of you to notice.
See you in the funny papers.
Well said Tau Food. However the poster still won't get your point. He apparently believes that foreign governments have an unalienable right to claim a person as a citizen.
Cruz was born in Calgary, Alberta Canada. I guess that whole thing about being born in Canada is a figment of my imagination.
Being born in Canada and admitting Canadian citizen are of course two different things.
Your statement is laughable.
Yeah whatever, your statement remains false.
Iirc there was a residency requirement in 1790 or 1795 or both.
Yeah, it’s in the admitting of it that counts. LOL
If you don’t admit your pregnant then you are not pregnant.
That’s some grade A logic there.
“you are” not “your”
Darn grammar.
I don’t think my statement you quoted has been properly applied to the situation you cover in your post.
If a poster CLAIMS something by his reasoning - and that is all that happened which I was responding to - and doesn’t cite where the Constitution defines something specifically or a statute or a court decision - then it IS only their reasoning/belief and not adjudication.
You then cite a court decision that affirms Congress does have this power under the Constitution to set residency/age requirements, etc. Well, there you go. The poster was trying to say the opposite, that it wasn’t permitted because in his/her view it was extra-Constitutional.
Well, I fail to see what it was in my statement that wouldn’t fit within the framework of your comments, when my statement is properly applied.
I was speaking generally, trying to show that a person on the internet or any other venue that offers reasoning, or opinion, isn’t the law, whether speaking statutorally or Constitutionally or judicially.
I really wasn’t intending to say that nothing about that issue had ever been decided in a court case but was merely saying ***THAT POSTER’S belief/reasoning*** had not been lawfully established just by saying it.
And his/her belief was that it isn’t Constitutional, and he/she could hold on to that belief even in the face of a court case to the contrary. Because court decisions are the subject of endless debate as to whether a decision got it right or wrong, Constitutionally speaking.
But they themselves are not able to establish THEIR contrary view by coming here and expressing it but citing no case, nor quoting a Constitutional definition, etc.
That’s why I appreciate Cruz and others on his side of the NBC divide who quote statutes. They are trying to nail down something better than just, “I’ve always seen it this way, etc etc...’”
But then along comes someone who says, this statute goes too far, it isn’t according to the Constitution in my view. But can’t establish it.
Others will say the opposite, that the statute did not go anywhere near far enough in defining a natural born citizen because it didn’t demand being born inside a boundary line or two citizen parents.
And around and around we go.
I just know that Cruz himself has gone over and over this stuff, of course he has. As have many scholars and other legal types. The weight of the matter comes down on the NBC meaning of citizen by birth not by naturalization, far as I can see, and that’s actually what the debate is about here, rather than the tangential matters that do come up.
LOL. You're the one who first used the word.
I simply said your statement was false.
Here's what you said ---> "Even Cruz admits he’s Canadian".
Here's what Cruz said --> "Assuming that is true, then sure, I will renounce any Canadian citizenship,"
Again your statement was false.
He stirred up the flames all by himself, darlin'.
He’s Canadian. But we don’t want facts to upset the apple cart or anything. Surely, you can see that.If you see that as anything other than insulting Jim, feel free to elaborate. Or stick with making me the villain, that's cool too.i.e. ignorant of the facts
You might not care about it but logically, you really have to delude yourself.
i.e. delusional
Why can’t people just be honest and say they dislike the clause. It’s so tiresome to have to play this game. Twisted logic and rationalizations.
i.e. dishonest
The residency requirement was for naturalization. There was no residency requirement for a qualification for natural born citizen status. The residency requirement was changed from 14 years to five years. Nothing in either statute required that a mother must live in the US for any specific time before giving birth to a Citizen in a foreign country. All that was required is parental citizenship status at the time of birth.
the five year after the age of 14 requirement in place at the time of Obama's birth is inconsistent with the definition of an NBC as defined by the First Congress. Therefore, I don't believe the requirement was effective to deny Obams NBC status if, in fact, he was actually born in Kenya.
As far as legal expertise goes.... We have a congress full of lawyers who are supposed legal experts. However, most there appear use their expertise as a way to gain power, hide information and circumvent the constitution. Then there are all the legal expert judges who refuse to hear cases by making rulings that citizens who bring relevant actions to the courts lack standing. We have a president, himself a lawyer, (albeit with a surrendered law licence) surrounded by other lawyers who constantly deny citizens important information by hiding and sealing documents that you and I are required to show several times in our lives.
Yes, the legal experts.... I am sick of them.
I forgot which founder it was who said something to the effect that the constitution was written to be read and understood be regular people.
Thereby, regular people like you and I can read the words of our founding documents, and disagree with the legal experts.
Our founders were amazing and brilliant. Were they not?
As you know, I am one of those who think Cruz is not an NBC. However, like you, should he appear on the ticket, I will support him.
It is time to be pragmatic..... We need to win.
I believe that if we lose the next presidential election, we will lose our country.
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