Cruz says he is a US citizen 'by birth' despite being born in Canada

FOXNEWS.com ^ | October 28, 2013 | unknown

[DiogenesLamp]

I just handed you and everyone reading this post the link to the actual law, yet, we'll still get a bunch of morons claiming things not in law as they will not take the time to read it. People who do that are no better than any liberal claiming crap they know nothing about. In my book, that makes them liberals.

You are handing us a Federal Law in an effort to settle a Constitutional issue?

If a Federal Law bans rifles and shotguns, does this mean that the 2nd amendment has been effectively repealed?

Please explain to me how a Federal law "tail" can wag a constitutional dog?

[Brown Deer]

Really?

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3084995/replies?c=695

We must have two different versions of FR. ;-)

[DiogenesLamp]

cruz’s mommy meets this requirement. Bammys mommy doesn’t........

Firstly, Natural born citizens do not have to meet requirements created by federal law. They have to meet requirements created by nature.

Secondly, Article II is not subject to federal requirements. Congress simply cannot pass a law and thereby change it's meaning.

[DiogenesLamp]

Everyone else who obtains citizenship at birth does so through a Congressional statute. In fact, they NEED a Congressional statute to give them citizenship because the Constitution (14A) does not explicitly grant citizenship to them. Since their citizenship is derived solely through Congressional statute, Congress may revoke or modify their citizenship status by revising statutory law.

Thank you. Well stated.

[deport]

Since he mentions dropping the Canadian at that time, and doesn’t mention the Cuban
at all, then it seems reasonable again to assume he had already dropped the Cuban.

**************

I don’t think he could have had Cuban Citizenship as the Cuban Constitution of 1940
which was in force at the time of Ted’s birth prohibits dual citizenship.

http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/constitution/title2.htm

ART. 15. The following lose Cuban citizenship:

1st. Those who acquire a foreign citizenship.

[DiogenesLamp]

Seems like the old definition prevailed, a natural citizen is someone who is a citizen at birth, without a naturalization process.

Children of immigrants do not have to go through a naturalization process. Only adults do that.

Because children of immigrants do not have to go through a naturalization process, does this make them natural born citizens?

[MD Expat in PA]

You make a great point as well.

I work for a US based company that is a fully owned subsidiary of a UK based company.

Just last week I traveled to the UK for a meeting at our corporate headquarters in the UK. I spent nearly a week over there.

What if I was a US citizen, living in and working full time for this company in the US, but was pregnant and during my one week trip to the UK, and I went into premature labor and delivered my child in the UK. Would my child be a UK or a US citizen? Of course my child would be a US citizen, and a “natural born” citizen even though not technically born on US soil. The child would not have or be entitled to UK citizenship.

I think there are some legal provisions that say I would have to contact the local US Consulate to register the birth and obtain all the necessary documents to re-enter the US with the child and obtain a US birth certificate, but from what I understand, this is rather routine with US citizens, US service members and diplomatic personnel, US citizens working and even temporarily living overseas on business.

[pgkdan]

(It is too late now but) If Cruz is considering a POTUS run, he should seal all of his past records....NOW!

Not worth the time or effort. Republican sealed records do not stay sealed. Ever.

[butterdezillion]

So how DO we know what the Founding Fathers meant?

[DiogenesLamp]

If a person is a citizen by birth (natural born, as opposed to naturalized), then that citizenship is not going to be taken away by some future act of Congress or by a future court or whatever.

It already happened.

[xzins]

If having one’s case appear in a statute is “citizen by operation of statute”, then all of us are such, even those born in the USA to 2 citizen parents. ALL appear in the law.

So, the advantage of those born in the USA is really the 14th amendment that specifically says that anyone born in the USA is a citizen. (Even it doesn’t use the term ‘natural born citizen’.)

“Natural born citizen” is no place defined in US law with the only exception being the Naturalization Law of 1790.

[butterdezillion]

If your brother was elected President his opponent could file suit challenging his eligibility and ACCORDING TO THE STATE DEPARTMENT’S DOCUMENT describing citizenship laws, the court could rule him non-eligible.

That’s not legal limbo?

[DiogenesLamp]

So, correct me if I am wrong, but what you are saying is that US Law cannot define "Natural Born Citizen"

This is exactly correct. US Law cannot change the meaning, nor set additional requirements, nor can it remove any existing requirements.

Federal law cannot modify the meaning of a constitutional term.

But somehow, in a legal sense, Senator Cruz is to be held accountable, in terms of his LEGAL eligibility to be President, by something outside of US Law?

Do not understand what you are trying to say here.

[butterdezillion]

Also - tell me more about how TX was able to require Eisenhower to provide a birth certificate in order to get on the TX ballot. Did the law at the time say that the SOS was authorized to demand a BC?

[BuckeyeTexan]

That's essentially what Rogers v. Bellei was about - "born" status. In that case, SCOTUS ruled that Congress had absolute authority to deny Rogers' claim to citizenship at birth because he failed to meet the retention requirements currently in place at the time. SCOTUS said Congress had obvious reason to be concerned about anyone with dual citizenship and that Congress had the constitutional power to put restrictions on any statutory citizen because such a person is not a 14A citizen, has no constitutional right to citizenship, and any citizenship granted is merely a Congressional generosity.

The dissent disagreed (obviously, heh) and said that statutory citizens are essentially naturalized and so are 14A citizens and cannot have their citizenship revoked without their consent - meaning they believed that retention requirements were unconstitutional.

The majority said that statutory citizens are not naturalized "in" the U.S. because Congress didn't force them to go through the arduous naturalization process even though it had the power to make them do so.

I agree that, today, the court would not allow Congress to revoke Cruz' citizenship.

Regarding whether or not the Constitution specifies jus soli or jus sanguinis, the FAM says that the Constitution does not recognize jus sanguinis. (If it did, there would be no need for statutes granting citizenship at birth.):

7 FAM 1131 Basis For Determination Of Acquisition

7 FAM 1131.1 Authority

7 FAM 1131.1-1 Federal Statues

(CT:CON-349; 12-13-2010)
a. Acquisition of U.S. citizenship by birth abroad to a U.S. citizen parent is governed by Federal statutes. Only insofar as Congress has provided in such statutes, does the United States follow the traditionally Roman law principle of "jus sanguinis" under which citizenship is acquired by descent. (See 7 FAM 1111 a(2)).

b. Section 104(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1104 (a) gives the Secretary of State the responsibility for administration and enforcement of all nationality laws related to "the determination of nationality of a person not in the United States."

7 FAM 1111 Introduction

(CT:CON-407; 6-29-2012)
a. U.S. citizenship may be acquired either at birth or through naturalization subsequent to birth. U.S. citizenship laws governing the acquisition of citizenship at birth embody two legal principles.

1. Jus soli (the law of the soil) - a rule of common law under which the place of a person's birth determines citizenship. In addition to common law, this principle is embodied in the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and various U.S. citizenship and nationality statutes.

2. Jus sanguinis (the law of the bloodline) - a concept of Roman or civil law under which a person's citizenship is determined by the citizenship of one or both parents. This rule, frequently called "citizenship by descent" or "derivative citizenship", is not embodied in the U.S. Constitution, but such citizenship is granted through statute. As U.S. laws have changed, the requirements for conferring and retaining derivative citizenship have also changed.

[DiogenesLamp]

My brother and Ted Cruz are not in any sort of “limbo” regardless of your claims and need not prove anything to you nor to anyone else regarding their citizenship.

I would say that the fact of your brother being involved, excludes you from being reachable by any logical or factual argument.

What sort of man would agree to any perceived de-legitimizing of his brother? No matter what the argument?

[butterdezillion]

With all the talk about what Congress and the courts can and can’t do with a person’s citizenship, or what they can and can’t decide or legislate.... I think anybody who believes anything with Ted Cruz is airtight is smoking something powerful.

Why don’t we try to do something to make the rules clear and legally airtight? At this point I don’t even really care what the rules end up being, but all this wiggle room becomes worrisome when you realize that our courts and Congress are having all their communications read by a communist-run NSA... and the media creates alternate realities every hour of every day and it gets swallowed up by the general public.

Why in the world would anybody not want these questions LEGALLY settled now? Why in the world would anybody accept the idea that all of us whose safety and rights are bound up in the only political processes we are able to participate in still have no standing to at least KNOW THE RULES OF WHO WE CAN CHOOSE TO BE IN THE WHITE HOUSE? Why would anybody want to trust a supposedly oral “understanding” of a contract when they could have a written one that really is legally binding?

[DiogenesLamp]

I have to disagree with that. Congress was constitutionally given power over naturalization AND the power to make any laws necessary to implement that power.

You are still tripping over the obvious.

So, to define who needs to be naturalized one MUST define who does not need to be naturalized, ie., those who are already natural.

The one thing is not a subset of the other. As I have pointed out before, NO children of Naturalized immigrants have a naturalization ceremony. Does this make them non-naturalized?

The absence of a ceremony or a certificate does not make them a "natural" citizen.

[xzins]

Senior actually renounced his Canadian citizenship when he received US citizenship (maybe before when he applied), but in his bio he says he renounced Canadian citizenship. Which is additional circumstantial evidence that he renounced his Cuban citizenship when receiving US citizenship. Otherwise, he would have renounced both at that time.

Nope, this says what I've explained, with the exception that US should probably read Canadian right before the "otherwise". Read the "otherwise" section again. It is possible I meant that doing the one at that time meant he would have also renounced the other, but it's more likely I meant the US to read Canadian. The "otherwise" sentence makes clear what I was saying.

I'm not saying it couldn't have been better written, but I think it's pretty clear.

[xzins]

I agree with you about both Cruz Senior and Junior, but my sentence you quoted dealt with Cruz Senior, iirc.