Yes, Ted Cruz Can Be Born in Canada and Still Become President of the U.S.

But what won't prevent Cruz from becoming president is his place of birth. Cruz was born in Calgary, Canada, while his parents were living there. His father is now an American citizen, but was not at the time; his mother, however, was born in the United States.

Helpfully, the Congressional Research Service gathered all of the information relevant to Cruz's case a few years ago, at the height (nadir?) of Obama birtherism. In short, the Constitution says that the president must be a natural-born citizen. "The weight of scholarly legal and historical opinion appears to support the notion that 'natural born Citizen' means one who is entitled under the Constitution or laws of the United States to U.S. citizenship 'at birth' or 'by birth,' including any child born 'in' the United States, the children of United States citizens born abroad, and those born abroad of one citizen parents who has met U.S. residency requirements," the CRS's Jack Maskell wrote. So in short: Cruz is a citizen; Cruz is not naturalized; therefore Cruz is a natural-born citizen, and in any case his mother is a citizen. You can read the CRS memo at bottom; here's a much longer and more detailed 2011 version.

I know what you want the Constitution to say. You want it to say that to be eligible for the Presidency both parents must have been born in the USA and the child born in the USA.

I would support a Constitutional amendment that said that. (And also one that got rid of anchor babies.)

But that is not what the current Constitution says. And it wouldn’t have been hard to say exactly that. So, my conclusion is that it is not what the Founders eventually voted to approve.

I know what you want the Constitution to say. You want it to say that to be eligible for the Presidency both parents must have been born in the USA and the child born in the USA.

No, I don't. I do not care where a child is born. What I care about is that a child who is a "natural citizen" is one who was born to people who have the ability to pass on citizenship, and that the child is raised as an American.

The idea that one's character is tied to a random piece of ground is in my mind nonsense. A person is tied by biology, not by earth.

I will point out that England itself threw out that nonsense back in the 19th century, yet we have people today attempting to assert a system which was even more liberal than what England ever used, and which they don't even use anymore.

But that is not what the current Constitution says. And it wouldn’t have been hard to say exactly that. So, my conclusion is that it is not what the Founders eventually voted to approve.

The constitution doesn't define anything other than "treason", but in the common vernacular of 1787, the meaning of "Natural citizen" was in accordance with the widely debated and understood principles of "natural law."

Most subsequent misunderstanding of the term is directly traceable to William Rawle who intentionally misled everyone when he wrote his book "A View of the Constitution" which became widely distributed. I say intentionally because he was well aware of the correct meaning, yet deliberately put the wrong one in his book.

He appears to be the ONLY prominent source for this notion that we followed British Common law regarding citizenship, and this opinion was completely inconsistent with that of all the other Prominent legal minds surrounding him in the early 1800s.

He did it for one reason and one reason only. Since the 1790s, he was a prominent member of the Abolition society, and he continuously argued for the English Common law position that anyone born here becomes a citizen. His intent was to get slaves recognized as citizens (and therefore non-slaves) merely from the fact of their birth in the United States.

He tried this argument before the Pennsylvania Supreme court (around 1805) and they utterly rejected it. The argument was successful in Massachusetts though, and as a result of it, that state abolished slavery by Judicial decree.

The effort to abolish slavery has done much to enshrine the idea that we followed English Common law, because that was the only legal argument possible for granting them citizenship when they obviously cannot make use of the argument of Rights descended from blood.

Sorry, Ted’s not eligible.

The thirteen original states all adopted English Common Law for the decision of legal questions. Under ECL, only persons born in the realm were natural born subjects. Parliament, by statute, extended NBS status to certain offspring born across seas, in order to allow for the descent of hereditary titles and properties. But the 13 States did not adopt ESL, only ECL. So the meaning of “natural born” inherited in the country by that adoption was limited to persons born on the soil.

By the way, in a bold strike against those who object to so called “anchor babies,” under ECL and under the law of this country resulting from the adoption of ECL, it DOES NOT MATTER what the citizenship of a child’s parents is, when a child is born here, they are a natural born citizen. The only exception would be children born here while their parents are serving in a diplomatic function for another country.

Here are links to my blog posts explaining why Ted cannot qualify:

http://jimsjustsayin.blogspot.com/2013/09/but-what-if-ted-cant-be-president.html
http://jimsjustsayin.blogspot.com/2015/03/ina-post-on-harvard-law-review-forum.html
http://jimsjustsayin.blogspot.com/2015/03/deuces-wild-and-foreign-born-
americans.html
http://jimsjustsayin.blogspot.com/2015/03/cruz-mccain-george-romney-ineligible.html

As I’ve staked out this position, I have been treated like a heretic by birthers whose thinking is based on application of legal principles found in Emmerich Vattel’s The Law of Nations. Vattel describes citizenship and sets out principles of citizenship that require one to be born on the soil of the nation and to be the child of citizens to be a natural born citizen. Their dependence on Vattel is misguided:

http://jimsjustsayin.blogspot.com/2015/03/cruz-mccain-george-romney-ineligible.html

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.