Excerpts from Politifact
Cruz was born in Calgary, Canada, in 1970. His family was living there because his father was working for the oil industry at the time. They moved when he was four. Cruz grew up in Texas and graduated from high school there, later attending Princeton University and Harvard Law School.
In 2013, the first-term senator -- already considered a prospective presidential candidate -- released his birth certificate, which shows his mother was born in Delaware and his father was born in Cuba. Not the similarities to Obama, whose mother was born in Kansas and father was African.
Most legal scholars maintain that Cruz is in the clear despite his Canadian birthplace.
The Constitution (for the little it matters any more) requires the President to be 35 years of age, a resident of the United States for 14 years and he or she must be a "natural born citizen." Most legal experts contend "natural born citizen" means someone is a citizen from birth and doesn't have to go through a naturalization process to become a citizen.
If that's the definition, then Cruz is a natural born citizen by being born to an American mother and having her citizenship at birth. The Congressional Research Service, the agency tasked with providing authoritative research to all members of Congress, published a report after the 2008 election supporting the thinking that "natural born" citizenship means citizenship held "at birth."
There are many legal and historical precedents to strongly back up this argument, experts have said. Those precedents were the subject of a recent op-ed in the Harvard Law Review by two former solicitor generals of opposing parties, Neal Katyal and Paul Clement, who worked for Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, respectively. They wrote that "natural born" had a longstanding definition dating back to colonial times.
British common law recognized that children born outside of the British Empire remained subjects, and were described by law as "natural born," Katyal and Clement wrote. "The framers, of course, would have been intimately familiar with these statutes and the way they used terms like 'natural born,' since the (British) statutes were binding law in the colonies before the Revolutionary War,'" they said.
Additionally, the first Congress of the United States passed the Naturalization Act of 1790, just three years after the Constitution was written, which stated that children born abroad to U.S. citizens were, too, natural born citizens. Many members of the inaugural Congress were also authors of the Constitution.
As you know, this isn't the first time the qualifications of a candidate have come into question:
* George Romney, the father of Mitt Romney who ran for president as a Republican in 1968, was born in Mexico.
* Barry Goldwater, the 1964 GOP presidential nominee, was born in Arizona before it was a state. Neither candidate's campaign was derailed by citizenship challenges.
*John McCain faced questions about his eligibility because he was born in the Panama Canal Zone while his father was stationed there. He was found eligible.
Kiev. McCain was born in Panama not in the zone. In a pamanian hospital. Congress passed a resolution to support his run
Barry Goldwater and John McCain had American citizen parents. Also, notice the Naturalization Act says citizens, plural, not singular.
Additionally, the first Congress of the United States passed the Naturalization Act of 1790, just three years after the Constitution was written, which stated that children born abroad to U.S. citizens were, too, natural born citizens. Many members of the inaugural Congress were also authors of the Constitution.