No question Ted Cruz is eligible to be president

The Bryan-College Station Eagle ^ | January 10, 2016 | The Editorial Board

[2ndDivisionVet]

No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty-five years, and been fourteen years a resident within the United States.

-- U.S. Constitution, Article II, Section 1

It is easy to ignore the often-hateful blatherings of Donald Trump, but his questioning of Ted Cruz' eligibility to be president needs an answer. And that answer is a clear "yes."

Trump knows very well that Cruz is eligible, but in his desperation to stave off a surging Cruz candidacy The Donald will say anything.

Although he was born in Calgary, Canada in 1970, Ted Cruz is considered a "natural born" citizen of the United States because his mother was born in Delaware. His Cuban father was working in the Canadian oil fields when his son was born. Thus, the Texas senator was born a citizen of both the United States and Canada. He always has though of himself -- rightly -- as American, saying he didn't realize he had dual citizenship until it was pointed out by The Dallas Morning News in 2014. At that time, Cruz renounced his Canadian citizenship, although he could have kept it without endangering his eligibility to be America's president.

Despite claims by some Trump supporters -- who still are trying to prove that Barack Obama's birth in Hawaii of a Kenyan father and American mother makes him ineligible to be president -- Cruz does not hold a Canadian passport and, apparently, never has.

Two former Justice Department lawyers, in a Harvard Law Review article quoted in USA Today last March, said, "Despite the happenstance of a birth across the border, there is no question that Sen, Cruz has been a citizen from birth and is thus a 'natural born citizen' within the meaning of the Constitution,"

Neal Katyal, who was acting solicitor general in the Obama administration from May 2010 to June 2011, and Paul Clement, solicitor general from 2004 to 2008 in the George W. Bush administration, said, "As Congress has recognized since the Founding, a person born abroad to a U.S. citizen parent is generally a U.S. citizen from birth with no need for naturalization. And the phrase 'natural born citizen' in the Constitution encompasses all such citizens from birth.

"Thus, an individual born to a U.S. citizen parent -- whether in California or Canada or the Canal Zone -- is a U.S. citizen from birth and is fully eligible to serve as president if the people so choose."

Surely Trump knows he is wrong about Cruz' eligibility, so why bring it up. Quite simply, Trump knows his poll numbers are ephemeral, that he has garnered just about all the supporters he is going to get. As Republican voters get serious about the election, they will settle for more serious, far more qualified canidates, including, possibly, Ted Cruz. TheTeflon Don's non-stick surface is beginning to peel.

There are many reasons to vote for Ted Cruz for president, and probably just as many not to. Like all candidates, he asks us to accept him, warts and all.

Whatever you think about Ted Cruz, he is eligible to be president of the United States -- and has been for a decade since he turned 35.

[SmokingJoe]

“likability” counts for diddly, kid, especially in this election

Is that why Cruz is doing well against Hilary Clinton even as Trump is losing to Hilary in most polls and the RCP average?

Nobody, but NOBODY, can touch Trump, in ANY poll,

Let me see....go back to 2008, 22 days before Iowa ....who was leading in the national polls?

Oh wait, it was another twice divorced liberal New Yorker.

From RCP:

2008 Republican Presidential Nomination — 22 Days Until Iowa Caucus
Poll Date
Giuliani
Huckabee
Romney
Thompson
McCain
Paul
Spread
RCP Average 22 Days To Go 23.6 19.4 13.7 11.6 11.3 4.4 Giuliani +4.2

www.realclearpolitics.com/compare/republican_presidential_nomination_2016_2012_2008.html

Giuliani was leading. McCain the eventual winner was languishing at
5th place, 12.6% behind Giuliani. How many states Did Giuliani win? ZERO!

[Godebert]

Note the reference to Natural Law in the first sentence of our Declaration of Independence.

It is crystal clear that the Founding Fathers used the Natural Law definition of 'natural born Citizen' when they wrote Article II. By invoking "The Laws of Nature and Nature's God" the 56 signers of the Declaration incorporated a legal standard of freedom into the forms of government that would follow.

President John Quincy Adams, writing in 1839, looked back at the founding period and recognized the true meaning of the Declaration's reliance on the "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God." He observed that the American people's "charter was the Declaration of Independence. Their rights, the natural rights of mankind. Their government, such as should be instituted by the people, under the solemn mutual pledges of perpetual union, founded on the self-evident truth's proclaimed in the Declaration."

The Constitution, Vattel, and “Natural Born Citizen”: What Our Framers Knew

The Laws of Nature and of Nature's God: The True Foundation of American Law

The Supreme Court of the United States has never applied the term “natural born citizen” to any other category than “those born in the country of parents who are citizens thereof”.

MINOR V. HAPPERSETT IS BINDING PRECEDENT AS TO THE CONSTITUTIONAL DEFINITION OF A NATURAL BORN CITIZEN.

The Harvard Law Review Article Taken Apart Piece by Piece and Utterly Destroyed

Citizenship Terms Used in the U.S. Constitution - The 5 Terms Defined & Some Legal Reference to Same

"The citizenship of no man could be previous to the declaration of independence, and, as a natural right, belongs to none but those who have been born of citizens since the 4th of July, 1776."....David Ramsay, 1789.

A Dissertation on Manner of Acquiring Character & Privileges of Citizen of U.S.-by David Ramsay-1789

The Law of Nations or the Principles of Natural Law (1758)

The Laws of Nature and of Nature's God: The True Foundation of American Law

Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Volume 20 - Use of The Law of Nations by the Constitutional Convention

[montag813]

♫I don't care too much for money. Money can't buy Cruz love.♫

Or at least 20% crossover votes...

[Godebert]

Neal Katyal, who was acting solicitor general in the Obama administration from May 2010 to June 2011, and Paul Clement, solicitor general from 2004 to 2008 in the George W. Bush administration, said, "As Congress has recognized since the Founding, a person born abroad to a U.S. citizen parent is generally a U.S. citizen from birth with no need for naturalization. And the phrase 'natural born citizen' in the Constitution encompasses all such citizens from birth.

Not much information exists on why the Third Congress (under the lead of James Madison and the approval of George Washington) deleted "natural born" from the Naturalization Act of 1790 when it passed the Naturalization Act of 1795. There is virtually no information on the subject because they probably realized that the First Congress committed errors when it passed the Naturalization Act of 1790 and did not want to create a record of the errors.

It can be reasonably argued that Congress realized that under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, Congress is given the power to make uniform laws on naturalization and that this power did not include the power to decide who is included or excluded from being a presidential Article II "natural born Citizen." While Congress has passed throughout United States history many statutes declaring who shall be considered nationals and citizens of the United States at birth and thereby exempting such persons from having to be naturalized under naturalization laws, at no time except by way of the short-lived "natural born" phrase in Naturalization Act of 1790 did it ever declare these persons to be "natural born Citizens."

The uniform definition of "natural born Citizen" was already provided by the law of nations and was already settled. The Framers therefore saw no need nor did they give Congress the power to tinker with that definition. Believing that Congress was highly vulnerable to foreign influence and intrigue, the Framers, who wanted to keep such influence out of the presidency, did not trust Congress when it came to who would be President, and would not have given Congress the power to decide who shall be President by allowing it to define what an Article II "natural born Citizen" is.

Additionally, the 1790 act was a naturalization act. How could a naturalization act make anyone an Article II "natural born Citizen?" After all, a "natural born Citizen" was made by nature at the time of birth and could not be so made by any law of man.

Natural Born Citizen Through the Eyes of Early Congresses

Harvard Law Review Article by Katyal & Clement FAILS to Establish Ted Cruz as Natural Born Citizen

[freedomjusticeruleoflaw]

The Bryan College Station... Ok, now I’m convinced.

[bIlluminati]

Only if they were legally married by U.S. law. But they couldn’t be, as Obama Sr. was already married. Although that is just for citizenship. Natural born citizenship? Not enough case law to be certain.

Same with Cruz. And certainly a Supreme Court that ruled that Obolacare fines are a tax could also rule that Cruz is ineligible.

[freedomjusticeruleoflaw]

Citizenship is not the issue. No one doubts Cruz is a citizen.

[Yosemitest]

FACT: Cruz’s father’s Cuban nationality at the time of Cruz’s 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:

MARK LEVIN explains that Ted Cruz IS a natural born citizen ( 7:30 )
Published on Sep 17, 2013

[Godebert]

In defining what an Article II “natural born Citizen” is, we do not seek to read into the Constitution that which was not intended and written there by the Framers. Despite popular belief, the Fourteenth Amendment does not convey the status of “natural born Citizen” in its text nor in its intent. Some add an implication to the actual wording of the Fourteenth Amendment by equating the amendment’s “citizen” to Article II’s “natural born Citizen.” But nowhere does the 14th Amendment confer “natural born citizen” status. The words simply do not appear there, but some would have us believe they are implied. But the wording of the Amendment is clear in showing that it confers citizenship only and nothing more.

Neither the 14th Amendment nor Wong Kim Ark make one a Natural Born Citizen

[Godebert]

Watch: Mark Levin declares Ted Cruz a "Naturalized Citizen"

Mark Levin Attacks Birthers: Admits He Hasn't Studied Issue; Declares Canadian-Born Cruz Eligible

[Yosemitest]

Our Founding Fathers were VERY CLEAR.



1st United States Congress, 21-26 Senators and 59-65 Representatives

As Hans von Spakovsky wrote in his Commentary "An Un-Naturally Born Non-Controversy":

... The Constitution, federal law, and the historical understanding of the Framers, as well as prior British legal traditions and law, all support this view.
In a recent article in the Harvard Law Review, two former U.S. Solicitor Generals, Paul Clement (who served under President George W. Bush) and Neal Katyal (who served under President Barack Obama) stated:

All the sources routinely used to interpret the Constitution confirm that the phrase “natural born Citizen” has a specific meaning:
namely, someone who was a U.S. citizen at birth
with no need to go through a naturalization proceeding at some later time.
And Congress has made equally clear from the time of the framing of the Constitution to the current day that,
subject to certain residency requirements on the parents,
someone born to a U.S. citizen parent generally becomes a U.S. citizen without regard to whether the birth takes place in Canada, the Canal Zone, or the continental United States.

Thus, former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger would not be eligible to run for president
because the Austrian native had to go through the naturalization process to become a U.S. citizen.

Certainly the Framers of the Constitution held this view of “natural born” citizen.
They had a deep understanding of British common law and applied its precepts, particularly as explained in Blackstone’s Commentaries, throughout the Constitution.
The U.S. Supreme Court in Smith v. Alabama (1888) recognized that
“the interpretation of the Constitution of the United States is necessarily influenced by the fact that
its provisions are framed in the language of the English common law,
and are to be read in the light of its history.”

Senator Cruz meets all three qualifications in the Constitution to be the president of the United States
if the American people make that choice.

One of those precepts of British law was
that children born to British citizens anywhere in the world,
even outside the dominions of the British Empire,
were “natural born” citizens of the Empire
who owed their allegiance to the Crown.
This historical understanding is explained in great detail by the Supreme Court in a well-known 1898 case, U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark.

The First Congress, which included many of the Framers of the Constitution, codified this view of a natural born citizen.
A mere three years after the Constitution was drafted, they passed the Naturalization Act of 1790,
which specified that the children of U.S. citizens born
“out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born Citizens.”
The modern version of this Act is found at 8 U.S.C. §1401.
It contains a list of all individuals who are considered “nationals and citizens of the United States at birth.”
Paragraph (g) includes:

A person born outside the geographical limits of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is an alien,
and the other a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, was physically present in the United States or its outlying possessions
for a period or periods totaling not less than five years,
at least two of which were after attaining the age of fourteen years. 

Ted Cruz was born in Canada in 1970;
his mother, who was a U.S. citizen by birth from Delaware, was in her 30s at the time.
She met Cruz’s father, who was born in Cuba, as a student at Rice University.
These facts show that
Cruz’s family background clearly meets the standard set out in the federal statute for being a natural born citizen who did not have to go through any naturalization process to become a citizen.;
That was also the case for Senator Barry Goldwater, who was born in Arizona before it became a state,
and Governor George Romney, who was born in Mexico.

The bottom line is that Senator Cruz meets all three qualifications in the Constitution to be the president of the United States if the American people make that choice.
The same is true of my wife, who was born in Manila.
Her father, whose family had been in America since shortly after the Pilgrims got to Massachusetts,
was temporarily working abroad for an American company—just like Ted Cruz’s father.

My wife is not likely to run for president,
but there is no question that she—like Ted Cruz, Barry Goldwater, George Romney, and John McCain—is eligible to be president
and to swear an oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”


Hans A. von Spakovsky is a a former commissioner on the Federal Election Commission and Justice Department lawyer. 
He is the coauthor of “Who’s Counting? How Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote at Risk”(Encounter 2012)
and  “Obama’s Enforcer: Eric Holder’s Justice Department” (HarperCollins/Broadside 2014).


The Naturalization Act of 1790, let's read it , too ( even though it DOES NOT APPLY) !
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.

[okie01]

Citizenship is not the issue. No one doubts Cruz is a citizen.

And, if he is a citizen at birth -- which he is -- he is thus eligible to serve as president.

No one should doubt that either.

[freedomjusticeruleoflaw]

Born a citizen by statute is not natural born. Congress could pass a law tomorrow conferring citizenship on everyone born in China with the surname Smith. It wouldn’t make them natural born citizens, it would make them citizens at birth however... just like Cruz.

[freedomjusticeruleoflaw]

Congress can’t post facto change definition of a word in the Constitution. This has been dealt with.

[freedomjusticeruleoflaw]

Yes, born of citizens... And they certainly didn’t mean born of citizens foreign soil. What if Cruz had been born in Saudi Arabia, spent his ENTIRE LIFE THERE, and then came.”home” last week to register as a candidate? According to many here he is STILL ELIGIBLE TO BE PRESIDENT.
Bullcrap.

[Godebert]

No matter how many times you post the Naturalization Act of 1790, it was just that, an act of naturalization. The Third Congress realized their mistake and under the lead of James Madison and the approval of George Washington deleted "natural born" from the Naturalization Act of 1790 when it passed the Naturalization Act of 1795.

The uniform definition of "natural born Citizen" was already provided by the law of nations and was already settled. The Framers therefore saw no need nor did they give Congress the power to tinker with that definition. Believing that Congress was highly vulnerable to foreign influence and intrigue, the Framers, who wanted to keep such influence out of the presidency, did not trust Congress when it came to who would be President, and would not have given Congress the power to decide who shall be President by allowing it to define what an Article II "natural born Citizen" is.

Additionally, the 1790 act was a naturalization act. How could a naturalization act make anyone an Article II "natural born Citizen?" After all, a "natural born Citizen" was made by nature at the time of birth and could not be so made by any law of man.

Natural Born Citizen Through the Eyes of Early Congresses

[Read Write Repeat]

Dude, maybe decaf is the way you ought to go vis-Ã -vis coffee.

[patq]

Do you know where most people go for the best Constitutional law advice? The editorial board of something called the The Bryan-College Station Eagle. You can find it piled up next to the exit door at your local grocery store. LOL.

[Yosemitest]

Do you NOT believe that the AMENDMENTS TO the Constitution, ARE part of the Constitution, AND JUST AS VALID AS the Constition ?

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 antd 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.

[Cboldt]

-- Where is the wording that says such citizenship describes a natural born citizen? --

The logic goes like this: Congress has the power to make rules of naturalization. If it makes a rule that attaches citizenship at birth, without going through a naturalization process, that rule is not a rule of naturalization. But, Congress is empowered to make that rule because it has the power to make rules of naturalization.

The sleight of hand is to skip past the constitutional grant of power, and look ONLY at whether citizenship attaches at birth, and whether citizenship involves going through a naturalization process. Voila, Congress defines natural born citizen. It means whatever Congress says it means.

Congress can transmogrify "naturalized" into "natural born citizen" simply by drafting the statute so that citizenship attaches at birth, without going through a naturalization process.