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On Ted Cruz Eligibility . . .
Vanity
| January 8, 2016
| Behind the Blue Wall
Posted on 01/08/2016 9:57:21 AM PST by Behind the Blue Wall
On Ted Cruz's eligibility, if he's the great advocate of the Constitution that he purports to be, I don't see why he doesn't agree to the public release of his immigration and naturalization file. Yes, he absolutely has to have an immigration file. We know for a fact that he doesn't have a U.S. birth certificate, and without that, the only way to legally live and work in the United States is via the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
If it's true that he acquired U.S. citizenship at birth through his mother, then the file would consist of a Consular Report of Birth Abroad of a Citizen of the United States of America (CRBA). http://travel.state.gov/content/passports/en/abroad/events-and-records/birth.html.
If such a document is in fact on file with the Statement Department, then we can at least say that he was a citizen at birth.
But no, that does not close the case. While there's certainly a good argument that "natural born citizen" means "citizen at birth", there are other arguments to the effect that if the purpose of the NBC clause was to prevent a President with divided loyalties, dual citizenship and natural born citizenship would be mutually exclusive categories, and it's not questioned that Cruz was a dual citizen until a bit more than two years ago.
I'd also like to say that for some of us, this issue as it related to Obama and now Cruz is far from just some wacky irrelevant technicality: the basic problem that America faces IMHO is the fact that we have traitors who have infested the highest levels of our government. Maybe not literal traitors actively fighting on the battlefield with our enemies, but traitors in the sense of people who place the interests of non-Americans above the interests of Americans; they don't place our security above our "international obligations", they don't defend our borders, they prioritize the needs of illegal aliens over those of American citizens, they sign international trade deals that decimate American industry, and on and on.
As it happens the Founders of our great nation were also quite concerned about this, having just fought a war for their independence not only against the British Crown, but also against the "Loyalists" who remained loyal to it following the Declaration of Independence. In yet another of their incredibly brilliant and prescient moves in crafting the Constitution, they embedded within it a clause that would (hopefully) ensure that at the highest level of our government, we would exclude those who might have divided loyalties, and even more IMHO, people who in the back of their minds might know that they would always have an "escape hatch" to avoid accountability to the American people by virtue of a latent claim to citizenship in a foreign country.
Yes, ultimately, a socialist traitor can come from anywhere, as can a constitutional conservative, but I don't see anything wrong with maintaining this one small measure of additional insurance against exactly the sort of traitorous, anti-American behavior and ideology that has been the hallmark of the Obama Administration.
TOPICS: Your Opinion/Questions
KEYWORDS: belongsinchat; naturalborncitizen; vanity
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To: Behind the Blue Wall
"I don't see why he doesn't agreeto the public release of his immigration and naturalization file.
Yes, he absolutely has to have an immigration file.
We know for a fact that he doesn't have a U.S. birth certificate,and without that,the only way to legally live and work in the United States is via the Immigration and Naturalization Service."
Maybe he has released it,
or maybe he doesn't want to do it UNTIL the proper time.
Why feed the Piranha, when all they're going to do is continue their baseless attacks.
TED CRUZ is by far, the MOST CONSERVATIVE CANDIDATE we've got !
Listen to a REAL CONSTITUTIONAL LAWYER:
Here's the supporting article from
Ilya Shapiro, a senior fellow in constitutional studies and editor-in-chief of the Cato Supreme Court Review.
Like most immigrants, he does a job Americans won't:
defending the Constitution.Yes, Ted Cruz Can be President
August 26, 2013., by Ilya Shapiro
As we head into a potential government shutdown over the funding of Obamacare, the iconoclastic junior senator from Texas - - love him or hate him - - continues to stride across the national stage.
With his presidential aspirations as big as everything in his home state, by now many know what has never been a secret:Ted Cruz was born in Canada.
(Full disclosure: I'm Canadian myself, with a green card.
Also, Cruz has been a friend since his days representing Texas before the Supreme Court.)
But does that mean that Cruz's presidential ambitions are gummed up with maple syrup
or stuck in snowdrifts altogether different from those plaguing the Iowa caucuses?
Are the birthers now hoist on their own petards,having been unable to find any proof that President Obama was born outside the United States
but forcing their comrade-in-boots to disqualify himself by releasing his Alberta birth certificate?
No, actually, and it's not even that complicated; you just have to look up the right law.
It boils down to whether Cruz is a "natural born citizen" of the United States,the only class of people constitutionally eligible for the presidency.(The Founding Fathers didn't want their newly independent nation to be taken over by foreigners on the sly.)
What's a "natural born citizen" ?
The Constitution doesn't say,
but the Framers' understanding, combined with statutes enacted by the First Congress, indicate thatthe phrase means both birth abroad to American parents - - in a manner regulated by federal law - -
and birth within the nation's territory regardless of parental citizenship.
The Supreme Court
has confirmed that definition on multiple occasions
in various contexts.
There's no ideological debate here:Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe and former solicitor general Ted Olson - -who were on opposite sides in Bush v. Gore among other cases
- - co-authored a memorandum in March 2008 detailing the above legal explanation in the context of John McCain's eligibility.Recall that McCain --lately one of Cruz's chief antagonists
- - was born to U.S. citizen parents serving on a military base in the Panama Canal Zone.
In other words, anyone who is a citizen at birth - -as opposed to someone who becomes a citizen later ("naturalizes"
or who isn't a citizen at all
- - can be president.
So the one remaining question iswhether Ted Cruz was a citizen at birth.
That's an easy one.
The Nationality Act of 1940 outlines which children become "nationals and citizens of the United States at birth."
In addition to those who are born in the United States or born outside the country to parents who were both citizens - -or, interestingly, found in the United States without parents and no proof of birth elsewhere - -
citizenship goes to babies born to one American parent who has spent a certain number of years here.
That single-parent requirement has been amended several times, but under the law in effect between 1952 and 1986 - - Cruz was born in 1970 - -someone must have a citizen parent who resided in the United States for at least 10 years,
including five after the age of 14, in order to be considered a natural-born citizen.
Cruz's mother, Eleanor Darragh, was born in Delaware, lived most of her life in the United States, and gave birth to little Rafael Edward Cruz in her 30s. Q.E.D.
So why all the brouhaha about where Obama was born, given that there's no dispute that his mother, Ann Dunham, was a citizen?Because his mother was 18 when she gave birth to the future president in 1961
and so couldn't have met the 5-year-post-age-14 residency requirement.
Had Obama been born a year later, it wouldn't have mattered whether that birth took place inHawaii,
Kenya,
Indonesia,
or anywhere else.(For those born since 1986, by the way,the single citizen parent must have only resided here for five years,at least two of which must be after the age of 14.)
In short, it may be politically advantageous for Ted Cruz to renounce his Canadian citizenship before making a run at the White House,
but his eligibility for that office shouldn't be in doubt.
As Tribe and Olson said about McCain - -and could've said aboutObama,
or the Mexico-born George Romney,
or the Arizona-territory-born Barry Goldwater
- - Cruz "is certainly NOT the hypothetical 'foreigner'who John Jay and George Washington were concerned might usurp the role of Commander in Chief."
21
posted on
01/08/2016 10:27:33 AM PST
by
Yosemitest
(It's SIMPLE ! ... Fight, ... or Die !)
To: John Valentine
How else would Cruz evidence his citizenship? If you don’t have a U.S. birth certificate, it stands to reason that you have to have another document of some sort evidence your citizenship.
To: House Atreides
Which is fine, so in that case, the paperwork should have been filed and there’s no reason that we shouldn’t be able to see it.
To: Yosemitest; All
Was Cruz’s mother ever a Canadian citizen?
Do you know the answer to this? Please. Thanks.
I’m not throwing rocks here. Trying to find facts.
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal-considerations/us-citizenship-laws-policies/citizenship-and-dual-nationality.html
It states: âSection 349 of the INA (8 U.S.C. 1481), as amended, states that U.S. nationals are subject to loss of nationality if they perform certain specified acts voluntarily and with the intention to relinquish U.S. nationality. Briefly stated, these acts include:
(and # 1 in their list is)
âobtaining naturalization in a foreign state upon oneâs own application after the age of 18 (Sec. 349 (a) (1) INA);â
To: House Atreides
Can someone born in Puerto Rico run for President?
To: Behind the Blue Wall
Who else would? INS would never be involved. He has a passport. He would show the record of birth to the state department for that. I don't see how another agency would ever be involved.
He did not Immigrate. He did not apply to be Naturalized. He never got a green card. Why do you think INS would be involved and in what action?
26
posted on
01/08/2016 10:35:47 AM PST
by
thackney
(life is fragile, handle with prayer)
To: Behind the Blue Wall
I see no reason for doubt here as Trump has already spoken on it;
"So he said so it shall be!"
27
posted on
01/08/2016 10:36:18 AM PST
by
Kartographer
("We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.")
To: RummyChick
Yes. Barry Goldwater was born in the Arizona Territory in 1909.
28
posted on
01/08/2016 10:37:51 AM PST
by
thackney
(life is fragile, handle with prayer)
To: TigerClaws
Where do you get the STUPID QUESTIONS, the
DemocRAT Underground ?
FACT: Cruzs fathers Cuban nationality at the time of Cruzs birth, is irrelevant,
according to the law at that time,
just so long as he was a LEGAL Immigrant at the time of Ted Cruz's birth,
AND both of Ted Cruz's parents were legally married to each other.
What are the rules for people born between December 23, 1952 and November 13, 1986?
The 14th Amendment IS a part of the U.S. Constitution and states in SECTION 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
So, under that power to legislate, Congress legislated and the President signed into law: When ONE parent was a US citizen and the other a foreign national,the US citizen parent must have resided in the US for a total of 10 years prior to the birth of the child,with five of the years after the age of 14.
... While there were initially rules regarding what the child must do to retain citizenship,amendments since 1952 HAVE ELIMINATED THESE REQUIREMENTS.
When Ted Cruz was born, his parents were "IN WEDLOCK".
They married, moved to Calgary, Alberta, and in late 1970 had their first and only child, Rafael Edward Cruz.
Cruz was born on December 22, 1970 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada where his parents, Eleanor Elizabeth Darragh Wilson and Rafael Bienvenido Cruz.
Cruz's mother was born and raised in Wilmington, Delaware, in a family of three quarters Irish and one quarter Italian descent.
Eleanor Darragh, mother of Ted Cruz, was raised in Delaware, graduated from a Catholic High School (1952) in the U.S., as well as Rice University (1956),so clearly she meets the residency requirements.
Source
In 1957, Rafael Bienvenido Cruz (Ted Cruz's father) decided to get out of Cuba by applying to the University of Texas.
Upon being admitted, he adds, he got a four-year student visa at the U.S. Consulate in Havana.
"Since he liked to eat seven days a week, he worked seven days a week, and he paid his way through the University of Texas," Ted Cruz says of his father, "and then ended up getting a job and eventually going on to start a small business and to work towards the American dream."
Only he did that in Canada, where Ted was born.
His father went there after having earlier obtained political asylum in the U.S. when his student visa ran out.
He then got a green card, he says, and married Ted's mother, an American citizen.
The two of them moved to Canada to work in the oil industry.
"I worked in Canada for eight years," Rafael Cruz says. "And while I was in Canada, I became a Canadian citizen."
The elder Cruz says he renounced his Canadian citizenship when he finally became a U.S. citizen in 2005 48 years after leaving Cuba.
Why did he take so long to do it?"I don't know. I guess laziness, or I don't know," he says.
So there is the law for the time Ted Cruz was born,
AND HOW
Ted Cruz's PARENTS fulfilled ALL those requirements of the law that time,
for Ted Cruz to be a "Natural Born Citizen".
Ted Cruz did NOT NEED a Court and a Judge to "Nationalize" him.
Senator Cruz became a U.S. citizen at birth, and he never had to go through a naturalization process after birth to become a U.S. citizen, said spokeswoman Catherine Frazier.
... The U.S. Constitution allows only a natural born American citizen to serve as president.
Most legal scholars who have studied the question agree that includes an American born overseas to an American parent, such as Cruz.
One more thing, listen to a REAL CONSTITUTIONAL LAWYER:
29
posted on
01/08/2016 10:38:06 AM PST
by
Yosemitest
(It's SIMPLE ! ... Fight, ... or Die !)
To: thackney
"And since he did not immigrate or become naturalized, what file would you suggest he show? "
If he did not close the paperwork to conclusion, he is technically an illegal alien.
That's not to say he could not take care of all of it post facto, the State Department has forms and processes for that too.
The paper trail can be established, and that's the least we should ask of every single candidate, every time.
Who would support having a Ballistic Missile Submarine Captain who did not, or could not provide documentary proof of his citizenship?
A POTUS has command over dozens of those, and many hundreds of others who have command authority over Nuclear weapons.
30
posted on
01/08/2016 10:38:50 AM PST
by
Mariner
(War Criminal #18 - Be The Leaderless Resistance)
To: Yosemitest
31
posted on
01/08/2016 10:39:49 AM PST
by
AuntB
(Illegal immigration is simply more "share the wealth" socialism and a CRIME not a race!)
To: thackney
To: Behind the Blue Wall
I have an idea. Anyone that asks of someone else to prove a negative must first identify themselves. In other words, why don’t you provide your identity before you ask someone else to prove theirs!
To: Mariner
If he did not close the paperwork to conclusion, he is technically an illegal alien. What paperwork? He has a record of birth to a US citizen, same as I. That is the paperwork we both used to get a Passport.
34
posted on
01/08/2016 10:40:40 AM PST
by
thackney
(life is fragile, handle with prayer)
To: AuntB
How does a âconstitutionalâ lawyer not know he is a citizen of Canada? Studying US law doesn't make you an expert in Canadian law.
35
posted on
01/08/2016 10:41:32 AM PST
by
thackney
(life is fragile, handle with prayer)
To: Behind the Blue Wall
If you read the Consular Report of Birth Abroad form you find at the bottom it is voluntary. It is merely a way but not the only way to prove citizenship at birth.
36
posted on
01/08/2016 10:43:30 AM PST
by
Starstruck
(I'm usually sarcastic. Deal with it.)
To: 11th Commandment
It’s not a question of proving a negative. All that he has to do is sign a piece of paper confirming that he permits the public release of any files on record for him with the INS/Consular office, whatever. End of story.
To: ifinnegan
‘Shut up you lying scum.’
This level of nastiness does not help Cruz. It’s creepy.
38
posted on
01/08/2016 10:44:41 AM PST
by
Fantasywriter
(Any attempt to do forensic work using Internet artifacts is fraught with pitfalls. JoeProbono)
To: thackney
"False. Foreign Soil births of US citizens are recorded at the US Consulate. "
If it was reported, it was recorded. And the result of that recording is either a CRBA or Passport issued at birth.
If it was not reported and recorded he has no documentary proof and will have to reconstruct the paper trail, starting with his and his Mother's birth certificates.
The US State Dept has mechanisms for this.
It's clear Cruz is likely an American Citizen by birth and is entitled to the privileges thereof. He should not have any issues closing the loop.
Unless he doesn't think it's important.
39
posted on
01/08/2016 10:44:58 AM PST
by
Mariner
(War Criminal #18 - Be The Leaderless Resistance)
To: thackney
Did you get a passport with only a foreign birth certificate? There’s nothing on his birth certificate that says his mother was U.S. citizen at the time of his birth.
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