Posted on 01/19/2016 8:55:20 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
The past eight or so years should have proven conclusively that the various strains of birthers out there do not know about which they speak. Nevertheless, this has not stopped them from continuing in their ways. The latest speculation I've seen surrounds the Naturalization Act of 1790 passed by the First Congress. Here is the relevant portion:
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: Provided, That the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States...
Birthers have been asserting that, since Rafael Cruz* did not become an American citizen until 2005, and while he was in Canada with his wife, during which time Ted was born, he became an Canadian citizen. This, in the Birthers' view, disqualifies Ted from this Presidency, as "the Founders" never would have intended someone like him becoming President
But look closer at the bolder portion. It never says that the father has to be a citizen of the United States at the time the child is born. All it says is that citizenship "shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States." It is indisputable that Rafael Cruz was in the United States for a period of time prior to both Ted's birth and his marriage to native born American citizen Eleanor Elizabeth Darragh Wilson in 1969. He fled Cuba in 1957 at the age of 18, arriving in Texas. There, he attended the University of Texas, graduating with a degree in mathematics in 1961. He even married his first wife there, Julia Ann Garza, in 1959. They later divorced, but not before he had two daughters with her. He was also granted political asylum in 1961 upon his graduation from UT.
In other words, Ted Cruz's birth meets everything required in this 1790 act. His mother, Eleanor Wilson, was a citizen by birth in the United States, fulfilling the requirement of a child being born to at least one citizen, and his father had lived in the United States for years and been granted political asylum here prior to his move to Canada.
With all of this said, the 1790 act is far from the only word on the issue. If we're talking about the Founders' intentions, it is also important to note that the Constitution specifically leaves to Congress the prerogative to "establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization" in Article I § 4, and because of this, the ways and conditions under which a person acquires citizenship today. Here is the relevant section of the current law:
Sec. 301. [8 U.S.C. 1401] The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth:
g) a person born outside the geographical limits of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is an alien, and the other a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, was physically present in the United States or its outlying possessions for a period or periods totaling not less than five years, at least two of which were after attaining the age of fourteen year...This proviso shall be applicable to persons born on or after December 24, 1952, to the same extent as if it had become effective in its present form on that date.
And, just in case we are curious as to what the law looked like when Ted Cruz was born on December 22, 1970, we can look to the Supreme Court Case of 1971 Rogers v. Bellei. Here is a layman's summary of the case (emphasis mine):
[Aldo Mario] Bellei (plaintiff) was born in Italy in 1939 to an Italian father and American mother, and visited but never lived in the United States. Bellei failed to comply with Section 301(b) of the Act, and in 1963 was consequently warned twice in writing by the United States that he was at risk of losing his United States citizenship. In 1964 and 1966, Bellei was informed by the American embassy in Rome, verbally and in writing, respectively, that he had lost his United States citizenship. Bellei challenged the constitutionality of the Act against Rogers (defendant), claiming the Act violates the Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause and Fourteenth Amendment Citizenship Clause. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.
And via the case syllabus, here is how the Court ruled:
Syllabus
Appellee challenges the constitutionality of § 301(b) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which provides that one who acquires United States citizenship by virtue of having been born abroad to parents, one of whom is an American citizen, who has met certain residence requirements, shall lose his citizenship unless he resides in this country continuously for five years between the ages of 14 and 28. The three-judge District Court held the section unconstitutional, citing Afroyim v. Rusk, 387 U. S. 253, and Schneider v. Rusk, 377 U. S. 163.
Held: Congress has the power to impose the condition subsequent of residence in this country on appellee, who does not come within the Fourteenth Amendment's definition of citizens as those "born or naturalized in the United States," and its imposition is not unreasonable, arbitrary, or unlawful. Afroyim v. Rusk, supra, and Schneider v. Rusk, supra, distinguished. Pp. 401 U. S. 820-836.
296 F.Supp. 1247, reversed.
The Cruz family moved back to the United States in 1974, when Ted was about four years old. Unlike Bellei, he has been a resident of this country ever since, thus meeting the requirements in place when he was born. All of this is irrelevant now, though, as Congress removed the portion of the law Bellei challenged in 1978.
In other words, Ted Cruz is absolutely eligible to run for President. Furthermore, the precise requirements for citizenship have evolved over the years. Even in the days of the Founders, this was true, as the 1790 act was superseded by the Naturalization Act of 1795 and then later by acts in 1798 and 1802.
Bellei aside, the general trend since World War II is that the Supreme Court prefers to liberalize, not restrict, the requirements for citizenship. Joseph M. Bessette has a great summary of this in his article on naturalization for the Heritage Foundation. If they take up the Cruz eligibility case, I'd think they are far more likely to continue that trend than to impose any more restrictions upon the process. Is that what birther types really want?
So, to make a long story short, the Ted Cruz birthers (and the Marco Rubio ones, honestly) are engaged in a losing battle. The Senator from Texas is every bit as eligible as all other natural born citizens to run for and be elected to the Presidency. This current Quixotic crusade they are undertaking, facts be damned, is nothing but an attempt by rabid Trump supporters to disqualify one of "their guy's" rivals from the race, because they evidently understand that Cruz is a real threat to Trump winning the nomination. This is classic banana republic totalitarianism, and we are better than that.
P.S.: For further reading, this article from the Harvard Law Review, written by former United States Solicitors General Paul Clement (Bush 43) and Neal Katyal (Obama) is definitely worth a read.
I am having a hard time deciding if you are willful, or just stubborn. Either way, you are misleading, and I wouldn't trust you with my socks.
If you want to end the discussion, it probably is not a good idea to decsend to the personal insult level.
As to the substance of this issue, the Supreme Court authorities draw a distinction where the deficiency is eligibility.
Good point. Now, please put me on your ignore list.
Yes that is odd. I mean, it is common (back then) for a divorced woman to maintain the last name of the man. But once remarried usually - not always - that name is changed to the current husband. It may be that she had not done all of the paperwork to have her name changed at that point.
I still use my first husbands last name. I have changed it to my current husbands on about half of my “official” stuff. Frankly, I just like the way it sounds in combination with my first name, LOL. I don’t like my first husband particularly, and haven’t seen him in decades, I don’t even know where he lives. I’ve been remarried about 10 years now, and my husband has given up asking when I will finally quit using the “other” last name.
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Back to the thread.
by electing Ted, you legitimize Obama.
Ping to # 170 , and to comments after the ping yesterday. Don't worry if you can't keep up. Nor can I; information overload.
NB: Heidi Cruz helped prepare, and endorses a form of "governance" inconsistent with our form of government.
http://i.cfr.org/content/publications/attachments/NorthAmerica_TF_final.pdf
May I just thank you for an interesting and highly informative thread (apart from the recent snarky insults). I appreciate the knowledge shared here and the intelligent discussion, which is sadly not the norm these days on FR.
Some of us have been following (and some researching in depth) the murky origins of 0 since he announced his candidacy in 2007. There is so much smoke there. I long to see the fire.
You are correct. Interparty actions have equal but opposite reactions.
For instance; when the GOP allowed the special prosecutor and the media to focus the Bill Clinton impeachment investigation on his sex life instead of his chief executive law-breaking, they squandered any possible GOP impeachment power for a century (assuming survival of the US).
Now, if they hypocritically back Cruz without settling this matter, there will be no going back.
It's been hard for me to realize that this talented Senator may have let his wealthy connections and his ambition push him into this corner; but everybody's human. I so wish he had followed his own original instincts and backed the winner in the polls and likely nominee so he could become AG or judge of the SCOTUS. Then the issue may have lay dormant until he could fix it.
The shoddy journailism in that article is astounding to behold. The author "studied at" Columbia University, so no surprise that his Marxist indoctrination glides so effortlessly over such whoppers as "it goes without saying" that a claim in an Arab-language article suggesting Hillary Clinton worked with the Muslim Brotherhood to bring about the Islamic State "is a fake and that the passage does not exist."
No, it does not and should not "go without saying." But this is the Washington Post under Jeff Bezos.
Nor are his glib claims of Obama's Christianity -- and that anyone who doesn't believe that is just a racist -- at all believable; since no one can know the state of Obama's salvation except the Christ Himself; yet by his actions, Obama has thrown overwhelming doubt on such a claim.
He named his first dog Bo after himself, so I thought it was a compliment to Sunni Islam when he named his second dog Sunny. But now I'm wondering if it weren't a slap in their face, since dogs are not "kosher" in Islam.
Ping to an interesting post
Wait; there's a gap in my information stream. Barry was born in Canada? What do you mean by that?
-—since dogs are not “kosher” in Islam.-—
Neither are h0m0s!
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>> “Further, the Bellei case actually supports the birther case” <<
Not even close to true.
You have to read only the published majority opinion to see what it found.
You are trying to twist the opinion by adding in minority dicta.
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>> “Further, the Bellei case actually supports the birther case” <<
Not even close to true.
You have to read only the published majority opinion to see what it found.
You are trying to twist the opinion by adding in minority dicta.
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Dicta from dissenting justices is not relevant.
(but it tickles the fancy of the deceivers)
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Dicta from dissenting justices is not relevant.
(but it tickles the fancy of the deceivers)
But there is a strong boylove subculture in those countries. Dogs, not so much.
Yes it is because the dissent is not on whether or not Belli was naturalized, it was on whether or not he could have his citizenship stripped from him. Both the concurring and dissenting justices agreed he was naturalized. It is just in the dissent they spelled out why.
By the way, the definition of naturalized in the dissents opinion is not dicta since it directly addresses the specifics of the case before them, that being he had to be determined naturalized first before they could strip his citizenship from him.
Yeah, they love them to death.
After they use them, they throw them from high buildings!
Sad but true.
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