I’m not the expert on statutory law of Congress defining citizenship. There are several here. SoConPubbie is one and there are others.
You two are simply wrong.
Defined by statute does not at all mean that someone is “naturalized”. Defined by statute - unless that statute is ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court - defines when one is considered a citizen AT THEIR BIRTH. When you are a citizen AT YOUR BIRTH, YOU ARE NOT A NATURALIZED CITIZEN.
Naturalized has a very specific meaning. It means that you must go through a naturalization process under the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service in order to become a citizen because you never were a citizen and can’t be until you are processed to become one. That would be a true case of someone who is not natural born but instead is naturalized. That person can’t legally run for President, according to the Constitution.
You are trying to say that if Congress defined NBC by statute, that is the same as providing naturalization for those who fall under that statute. No, it isn’t. It is defining WHO WAS A CITIZEN AT THEIR BIRTH.
As Jim Rob posted on this thread, and has posted many times before, Ted Cruz falls under a statute that defined natural born as having been born to a U.S. citizen parent (his mother is a U.S. citizen and was only working temporarily in Canada (she was born and raised in Delaware and came back here to live in Houston - still lives there) and does not have to have been born on U.S. soil nor did his father’s status deprive Ted of U.S. citizenship through his mother.
No court ruling has ever overturned the statute that defined Ted Cruz as a U.S. citizen.
And are you not aware that the Constitution ITSELF gave Congress the authority to define citizenship? Well, it does!
To come on here, after all of this has been hashed and rehashed for many months, and settled, and to think you are somehow successfully contradicting what the rest of us have posted about this, is not going to work.
I’m not going to let it go by.
Frankly, Ted Cruz’ father would make a better president, would fulfil the founders wishes about who should be a good candidate for president than 99.9% of those who might run as the demonrat candidate..........
That being said, I would like to make a few points that do not, as of yet, seem to have been made.
The argument is that since, by statute, Sen. Cruz was a U.S. citizen at birth, that he's natural born. The premise here is that he qualifies because his mother was a U.S. citizen at the time.
Until fairly recently, U.S. law was that a woman assumed the citizenship of her husband at marriage. Let's assume, for just a moment, that the laws in force at the time of Sen. Cruz's birth said that a woman who married a non-citizen gave up her U.S. citizenship. His mother would have assumed Cuban citizenship, his father was a Cuban citizen, and he was born in Canada. He would have been a Cuban citizen, and probably a Canadian citizen, but could not have been a U.S. citizen at birth.
The implication here is that laws that congress pass determine who can and can not be a natural born citizen. Several people on this thread and others have said as much. According to this theory, congress could pass a law stating that Tony Blair is a natural born citizen of the U.S. and could, therefore, run for president.
LOL! The Constitution gives Congress every authority to define the criteria for a naturalized citizen, but it no more gives them the abiliy to define an Article II 'natural born citizen' than it does to define 'arms' in the 2nd Amendment or 'Liberty' in the Preamble.
There is only one clause that enumerates such an authority of definition...and it has nothing to do with citizenship....