Donald Trump Ramps Up Attacks on Ted Cruz’s Eligibility

NY Times ^ | 1/9/16 | Trip Gabriel and Matt Flegenheimer

[randita]

OTTUMWA, Iowa — Donald J. Trump sharply escalated his rhetoric about Senator Ted Cruz’s eligibility to be president on Saturday, suggesting that because he was born in Canada there were unanswered questions about whether he met the constitutional requirement to be a “natural-born citizen.’’

“You can’t have a person who’s running for office, even though Ted is very glib and he goes out and says ‘Well, I’m a natural-born citizen,’ but the point is you’re not,” Mr. Trump said while campaigning in Clear Lake, Iowa.

Mr. Cruz was born in Calgary, Canada, to an American mother, which automatically conferred American citizenship. Most legal experts agree that satisfies the requirement to be a “natural-born citizen,’’ a term that was not defined by the founders.

Mr. Trump, who began raising questions about Mr. Cruz’s ability to be president earlier in the week, said on Saturday that Mr. Cruz would have to go to court to get a “declaratory judgment” about his eligibility “or you have a candidate who just cannot run.’’ (Mr. Cruz could need a judgment if someone filed a lawsuit to challenge his candidacy and a court agreed to take up the question.)

With polls showing the race in Iowa tightening, and Mr. Cruz leading Mr. Trump by 4 percentage points in a Fox News poll released on Friday, Mr. Trump has returned to an issue that first gained him notoriety years ago when he challenged President Obama’s citizenship.

On Saturday night, before the final stop on a six-day bus tour of Iowa, Mr. Cruz said: “Under longstanding federal law, the child of a U.S. citizen born abroad is a natural-born citizen.”

[randita]

"No, from what I understand everything is fine,” Trump said. “I hear it was checked out by every attorney and every which way and I understand Ted is in fine shape.”

[editor-surveyor]

.
What?

He figured out that the attack was damaging himself?

[Paladin2]

Trump attacks on Cruz and vice versa are counter productive. Trump so grabs the middle that he really has no threat from Cruz. Most of the base would love to see Trump squash the GOPee.

[shankbear]

Cruz qualifies. Trump needs to put on his big boy panties and just campaign on issues.

[Helicondelta]

Trump is right, of course. Obama’s mother was born in the US but that didn't prevent hundreds of lawsuits to be filled to compel Obama to present a US birth certificate, which he finally did.

But Cruz didn't even bother to come up with a Hawaiian birth certificate. His campaign released a birth certificate from Canada. This is unprecedented. This will dominate the Cruz campaign. The dark cloud is not going away.

[Mollypitcher1]

That’s a statement from weeks ago.

[Mollypitcher1]

Why does Cruz qualify ? Because he says he does?

[jonrick46]

The Democrats won't be so nice. They will see this as the green light:

"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."

There could be doubt about whether Ted Cruz's father was considered a resident in the legal definition. The Democrats will get the courts to decide Cruz's status.

[Jane Long]

Trump does campaign on the issues. This happens to be an issue, now, ever since the reporter asked Trump about it. Trump rarely talks about CRuz. He predominately talks about policy points.

[DoughtyOne]

It's the rage these days,
so lets all play Conservative Review Checkers,
the Cruz vs Trump classic.

REFERENCE

[Yosemitest]

Here's 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 that
the 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 is
whether 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 in
Hawaii,
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 about
Obama,
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."

The Naturalization Act of 1790, let's read it !

United States Congress, "An act to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization" (March 26, 1790).

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled,

That any Alien being a free white person,
who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years,
may be admitted to become a citizen thereof on application to any common law Court of record in any one of the States
wherein he shall have resided for the term of one year at least,
and making proof to the satisfaction of such Court  that
he is a person of good character,
and taking the oath or affirmation prescribed by law
to support the Constitution of the United States,
which Oath or Affirmation such Court shall administer,
and the Clerk of such Court shall record such Application, and the proceedings thereon;
and thereupon such person shall be considered as a Citizen of the United States. 


And the children of such person so naturalized,
dwelling within the United States,
being under the age of twenty one years at the time of such naturalization,
shall also be considered as citizens of the United States. 

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: 
Provided also, that
no person heretofore proscribed by any States, shall be admitted a citizen as aforesaid,
except by an Act of the Legislature of the State in which such person was proscribed.

[KGeorge]

There are other questions about Cruz’s father (fighting for Castro, did they move to Canada because he feared being drafted to VN?) that won’t be flattering to the Cruzes, either.

Since his father played such a role in Ted’s ambition, & is currently very actively campaigning for him, there’s no way the younger Cruz can say those things have nothing to do with him.

[Sun]

“Why does Cruz qualify ? ....”

Here’s why Cruz qualifies:

“....his mother was born and raised in the United States. The law in effect then, and now, made Ted Cruz a U.S. citizen at birth.”

Read more: http://nation.foxnews.com/sen-ted-cruz/2013/03/11/spokesman-senator-cruz-us-citizen-birth#ixzz2cCNiCjP8

[WhiskeyX]

It’s a pity you and Ilya Shapiro lack reading comprehension. You’re posting the proof that Obama, Cruz, Rubio, Jindal, Santorum, and many others are not natural born citizens as required by the Constitution.

[Mollypitcher1]

Naturalization has nothing to do with Natural Born citizen.

[Mollypitcher1]

A US Citizen is not a Natural Born Citizen.

[Mollypitcher1]

Not necessarily. According to Vattel, Law of Nations, Must be born of TWO Citizens to be Natural Born and also born on the Soil of the U.S.

A tree is a plant, but a plant is not necessarily a tree.

[Mollypitcher1]

or to put it another way, A tree is a plant, but not all plants are trees.

[Republican1795.]

Whatever the truth is about Cruz... it is nothing compared to the ineligibility of the current President.

[shankbear]

Mother born in USA. US citizen living somewhere else while retaining citizenship having a child, child is US citizen. Non issue.