Posted on 01/07/2016 9:35:59 AM PST by Isara
Senator Ted Cruz is wise to laugh off Donald Trump's intimation that his constitutional qualifications to serve as president may be debatable.
The suggestion is sufficiently frivolous that even Trump, who is apt to utter most anything that pops into his head, stops short of claiming that Cruz is not a "natural born citizen," the Constitution's requirement. Trump is merely saying that because Cruz was born in Canada (of an American citizen mother and a Cuban father who had been a long-time legal resident of the United States), some political opponents might file lawsuits that could spur years of litigation over Cruz's eligibility.
The answer to that "problem" is: So what? Top government officials get sued all the time. It comes with the territory and has no impact on the performance of their duties. Indeed, dozens of lawsuits have been brought seeking to challenge President Obama's eligibility. They have been litigated for years and have neither distracted him nor created public doubt about his legitimacy. In fact, most of them are peremptorily dismissed.
On substance, Trump's self-serving suggestion about his rival is specious. (Disclosure: I support Cruz.)
A "natural born citizen" is a person who has citizenship status at birth rather than as a result of a legal naturalization process after birth. As I explained in Faithless Execution (in connection with the term "high crimes and misdemeanors"), the meaning of many terms of art used in the Constitution was informed by British law, with which the framers were intimately familiar. "Natural born citizen" is no exception.
In a 2015 Harvard Law Review article, "On the Meaning of 'Natural Born Citizen," Neal Katyal and Paul Clement (former Solicitors-General in, respectively, the Obama and George W. Bush admininistrations), explain that British law explicitly used the term "natural born" to describe children born outside the British empire to parents who were subjects of the Crown. Such children were deemed British by birth, "Subjects ... to all Intents, Constructions and Purposes whatsoever."
The Constitution's invocation of "natural born citizen" incorporates this principle of citizenship derived from parentage. That this is the original meaning is obvious from the Naturalization Act of 1790. It was enacted by the first Congress, which included several of the framers, and signed into law by President George Washington, who had presided over the constitutional convention. The Act provided that children born outside the United States to American citizens were "natural born" U.S. citizens at birth, "Provided, That the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States."
As we shall see presently, Congress later changed the law, making it easier for one American-citizen parent to pass birthright citizenship to his or her child, regardless of whether the non-American parent ever resided in the United States. But even if the more demanding 1790 law had remained in effect, Cruz would still be a natural born citizen. His mother, Eleanor Elizabeth Darragh Wilson, is an American citizen born in Delaware; his native-Cuban father, Rafael Bienvenido Cruz, was a legal resident of the U.S. for many years before Ted was born. (Rafael came to the U.S. on a student visa in 1957, attended the University of Texas, and received political asylum and obtained a green card once the visa expired. He ultimately became a naturalized American citizen in 2005.)
As Katyal and Clement observe, changes in the law after 1790 clarified that children born of a single American-citizen parent outside the United States are natural born American citizens "subject to certain residency requirements." Those residency requirements have changed over time.
Under the law in effect when Cruz was born in 1970 (i.e., statutes applying to people born between 1952 and 1986), the requirement was that, at the time of birth, the American citizen parent had to have resided in the U.S. for ten years, including five years after the age of fourteen. Cruz's mother, Eleanor, easily met that requirement: she was in her mid-thirties when Ted was born and had spent most of her life in the U.S., including graduating from Rice University with a math degree that led to employment in Houston as a computer programmer at Shell Oil.
As Katyal and Clement point out, there is nothing new in this principle that presidential eligibility is derived from parental citizenship. John McCain, the GOP's 2008 candidate, was born in the Panama Canal Zone at a time when there were questions about its sovereign status. Barry Goldwater, the Republican nominee in 1964, was born in Arizona before it became a state, and George Romney, who unsuccessfully sought the same party's nomination in 1968, was born in Mexico. In each instance, the candidate was a natural born citizen by virtue of parentage, so his eligibility was not open to credible dispute.
So The Donald needn't fear. Like President Obama, President Cruz would spend more time working on which turkeys to pardon on Thanksgiving than on frivolous legal challenges to his eligibility. Ted Cruz is a natural born U.S. citizen in accordance with (a) the original understanding of that term, (b) the first Congress's more demanding standard that took both parents into account, and (c) the more lax statutory standard that actually applied when he was born, under which birthright citizenship is derived from a single American-citizen parent.
The phrase you quote, “shall be considered as natural born Citizens,” is a legal term of art signifying a person who is not a natural born citizen will be considered as a natural born citizen despite not being a natural born citizen. The act was repealed due to defects in the Act which had to be addressed with subsequent legislation. The term of art in law was described by English jurist in the 17th Century and earlier in connection with the problems of determining who was and was not a citizen-subject entitled to inherit Norman-English estates and other properties when having been born outside of England from English/Norman fathers. The phrase is actually proof that the person who acquires U.S. Citizenship is in fact not a natural born U.S. Citizen despite being “considered” as one for purposes of determining U.S. Citizenship at birth.
As discussed in more detail in the following section of this report, there have been some legitimate legal arguments and varying opinions about the status of foreign born children of U.S. citizens as being either “natural born†citizens under common law principles, or citizens who are “naturalized†by statute.
One of those would have been provided in lieu of a BC to obtain the passport.
If they are considered as natural born citizens, where is the exclusion for qualifying for the Presidency?
No, I'm saying he has not shown that he is a US Citizen with a document trail. And it's a legitimate questions to ask of someone who was born abroad and held the citizenship of a foreign country until 2014.
Especially somebody running for POTUS.
And even the CRS (as I posted above) indicates there are legitimate legal questions as to whether somebody born on foreign soil is NBC.
No. Citizenship only..
yes.
The authors cite to the Naturalization Act of 1790 and ignore the fact that the Naturalization Act of 1795, with the lead of then-Rep. James Madison and with the approval of President George Washington, repealed it and specifically changed "shall be considered as natural born citizens" to "shall be considered as citizens of the United States."
James Madison the "father of the Constitution" changed the wording from "natural born citizen" to "citizen". Madison was no dope and the change was to prevent a foriegn born from becoming Commander in Chief. But this also serves to illustrate that "citizen at birth" does not mean "natural born citizen".
See more at
https://cdrkerchner.wordpress.com/tag/harvard-law-review/
Well, so far complaints involving the ineligibility for Cruz, Rubio and Jindal to run for president have been filed in three states. Florida, Vermont, and MD. It appears all these people have to do is show proof of the eligibility requirements to run for president as stated in the constitution. So far none have, however Jindal has dropped out so it is moot for him. (Citizenship is not the same as the naturalization requirements for citizenship to run for President as stated in the constitution.)
For some odd reason, Cruz has had his birth records sealed. He’ll have to answer the reason why himself. Heaven forbid if we speculate on that one. It does appear very strange especially if he has nothing to hide? He did show his Canadian Birth Certificate and his paper denouncing his Canadian citizenship, but he has not shown any consulate papers. That must be what he has sealed. So if Cruz will just show proof of the proper papers there should be no problem. But, so far he has not and avoids the subject when asked.
Rubio, will be very difficult to prove as neither of his parents were citizens until five years after he was born.
Read Florida Complaint for Declaratory Judgment and Injunction 50 here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/293623437/Complaint-for-Declaratory-Judgment-and-Injunction-50
I just sent you something saying that the Cruz birth records are sealed. I can’t verify that, but it would be interesting to see the registration papers from the Consulate, if they exist.
Regardless of Canadian birth, Ted Cruz survives ballot challenge in New Hampshire | Dallas Morning News | November 24, 2015
This National Review article is not playing straight--the article is biased in favor of Cruz' eligibility, an issue which is not settled.
An obvious instance of this bias is the author's (McCarthy's) characterization (or mischaracterization) of the Naturalization Act of 1790, the first legislation on the subject. According to McCarthy:
The Act provided that children born outside the United States to American citizens were "natural born" U.S. citizens at birth, "Provided, That the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States."
This statement is false. The Act did not provide that children born outside the United States to American citizens were natural born (subject to the exception given). The Act provided, rather, that such children were to be considered as natural born citizens. McCarthy apparently paraphrases in order to avoid the actual text, which reads as follows:
And the children of citizens of the United States that may be born beyond Sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born Citizens . . . .
Why not quote the actual words of the statute? And why wouldn't Congress have used "are" instead of "shall be considered as"?
I don't know for sure about McCarthy, but Congress used "shall be considered as" instead of "are" because the first Congress recognized that it did not have the power to create natural born citizens. Article I Section 8 provides that "The Congress shall have power . . . To establish a uniform rule of naturalization . . . ." There is no power granted to establish a rule granting natural born citizenship status.
The first Congress accordingly prescribed that the children at issue "shall be considered as" natural born, rather than that they "are" natural born. By this Act, Congress was establishing a rule of naturalization (at birth) for foreign-born children of citizens, with the directive that such children "shall be considered as" natural born citizens (in law), even though they are not natural born citizens (in fact).
Further, since Congress only has power to create naturalized citizens, anyone whose citizenship is the result of an Act of Congress (the result of of any enacted law) is not a "natural born" citizen.
Natural Law is different than government law.
A natural born citizen is so because of Natural Law not government laws. Some one born on soil with two citizen parents is a natural born citizen because no other sovereign but the sovereign of the soil he was born on has any claim to his elegance.
This is not rocket science.
Birth records are sealed naturally. The subject (person) doesn’t have to affirmatively act to seal them. Cruz has produced a copy of his birth certificate, but not a CRBA.
Do you ever get tired of telling lies? Cruz's birth certificate is posted all over the Internet, including being posted on this forum at least 5 times! If his birth records were sealed, how could that be? And as I have pointed out NUMEROUS times, no one that has made the claim that Cruz had his records "sealed" has ever posted any proof of that claim. The only thing I have ever seen posted is a response to a FOIA request that pointed out that BY LAW such records were not subject to a FOIA request unless the requester submitted written permission from the subject of the request to allow the records to be released. That prohibition would apply to your records (if any) as well. Have YOU had your records sealed?
Dear God you birthers are strange! But since most of you support Trump, who was one of the original birthers (along with his good friend Hillary), I guess that is to be expected.
Compare that to the child of an illegal alien born in the US who becomes an American citizen at birth. The only proof of citizenship needed is a birth certificate.
Without a US issued birth certificate you are not a US citizen by birth, the CRBA is the equivalent of a US birth certificate for US citizen born abroad. Where is it?
Arnold Schwarzenegger has a driver’s license and US Passport. He is not eligible to be President.
The Senate Resolution in favor of McCain used the same sleight of hand, claiming that the act of 1790 defined NBC as including persons born abroad of citizens.
Courts pull the same sort of sleight of hand, redefining terms to obtain the desired outcome.
So let’s see his Consular Report of Birth Abroad. Unseal your citizenship documents Ted.
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