Posted on 01/12/2016 10:09:44 AM PST by Behind the Blue Wall
Donald Trump is actually right about something: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) is not a natural-born citizen and therefore is not eligible to be president or vice president of the United States.
The Constitution provides that "No person except a natural born citizen . . . shall be eligible to the office of President." The concept of "natural born" comes from the common law, and it is that law the Supreme Court has said we must turn to for the concept's definition. On this subject, the common law is clear and unambiguous. The 18th-century English jurist William Blackstone, the preeminent authority on it, declared natural-born citizens are "such as are born within the dominions of the crown of England," while aliens are "such as are born out of it."
. . .
Cruz is, of course, a U.S. citizen. As he was born in Canada, he is not natural born. His mother, however, is an American, and Congress has provided by statute for the naturalization of children born abroad to citizens. Because of the senator's parentage, he did not have to follow the lengthy naturalization process that aliens without American parents must undergo. Instead, Cruz was naturalized at birth.
"Ted Cruz was born on December 22, 1970,[3][4] in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, to parents Eleanor Elizabeth (Darragh) Wilson and Rafael Bienvenido Cruz.[5][6][7] At the time of his birth, Cruz' parents were working in the oil business as owners of a seismic-data processing firm for oil drilling.[6][8][9][10][11] Cruz has said, “I’m the son of two mathematicians/computer programmers.â€[12] The family moved to Texas in 1974.[13]So what do we have here? One of Cruz's parents is an American citizen. The other a Canadian asylum seeker. President Obama, the current president, has only one natural born citizen parent. The only difference I can see is that Cruz was born in Canada and lived there until he was four because his parents were in business there. He's always had American citizenship. Obama, on the other hand, was, as the official story goes, born in Hawaii and lived from about 6 to 11 in Indonesia. Are Americans who happened to be born to parents who were abroad for business or any other purpose therefore disqualified from being natural-born citizens and Presidential candidates? The Constitution is vague on this, and perhaps it's to let the public debate be the final judge. Think about the difference between someone like Cruz, having citizenship from birth and just living in Canada until 4, and then being raised to adulthood in the U.S. Then think about someone born in America but who has one foreign-born parent and might live mostly abroad from age two until they return to the U.S. permanently at age 25? There are endless scenarios.Rafael Cruz was born in Cuba, and his father was from the Canary Islands in Spain. Ted Cruz's mother was born in Wilmington, Delaware, and is of three quarters Irish and one quarter Italian ancestry.[14][15] His father left Cuba in 1957 to attend the University of Texas at Austin, obtained political asylum in the United States after his four-year student visa expired, and became a Canadian citizen during his eight-year stay in that country.[16] Rafael Cruz ultimately became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2005.[6][17][18][19] His mother earned an undergraduate degree in mathematics from Rice University in the 1950s.[20] Eleanor and Rafael Cruz divorced in 1997.[21]
Cruz had two older half-sisters from his father's previous marriage, Miriam Ceferina Cruz and Roxana Lourdes Cruz. Miriam, who had several brushes with the law during the 1990s and 2000s including charges of theft and public intoxication, died of a prescription drug overdose on January 10, 2011.[21] Roxana, who has declined media interviews, is a physician in Texas.[21][22][23] Cruz also had a half-brother, Michael Wilson (1960–1965), from his mother's previous marriage. He first learned of him from his mother during his teenage years.[23]"
The Boss is the Boss and I will make no more comment on this issue until the winning candidate is clear or until the democrats in power demand an accounting. I disagree with the Boss but will resist no more, it his site and his opinion.
Nobody is saying he is not a citizen, but he is NOT a NATURAL BORN CITIZEN.
Spare me. And Ark?!? Really ? LOL!!!!
John Locke, Montesquieu, Aristotle, Hobbes, Plato, and Rousseau never set foot in the US either, but ALL of them greatly influenced the writing of the constitution. And yes, de Vattel was one of the MOST influential. The capitalized Law of Nations mentioned in Article I refers to his work.
The Preamble defines who is a natural-born citizen.
PreambleWe the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
"We the People" are citizens of the United States. "Our Posterity" are the natural born who follow -- the children of the People. The Constitution was "ordained and established" to "secure... Liberty" to its citizens and their children.
Whom else was the Constitution established to secure, if not the citizen People and their citizen children?
How else would the Founders attempt to secure the United States of America if not by limiting the qualifications for the highest office to the People and their Posterity that was the reason for establishing the Constitution in the first place?
That language seems plain enough to me. The whole Constitution must be read within the context of the purpose as stated by the Framers in the Preamble: the Constitution was framed specifically to ensure the country to its people and their children - the natural born of the country.
If you are an alien who becomes a naturalized citizen, you become one of We the People, and then your children that follow become the nation's posterity.
Natural-born citizens are the nation's "posterity" that the Constitution was ordained and established to secure.
-PJ
That’s called a non-sequitur.
Birthright citizenship in the United States refers to a person's acquisition of United States citizenship by virtue of the circumstances of his or her birth. It contrasts with citizenship acquired in other ways, for example by naturalization later in life. Birthright citizenship may be conferred by jus soli or jus sanguinis. Under United States law, U.S. citizenship is automatically granted to any person born within and subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. This includes the territories of Puerto Rico, the Marianas (Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands) and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and also applies to children born elsewhere in the world to U.S. citizens (with certain exceptions).[1][2]Cruz has birthright citizenship through jus sanguinis.The Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution states that "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."[3]
The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that approximately 7.5% of all births in the U.S. (about 300,000 births per year) are to unauthorized immigrants.[4] The Pew Hispanic Center also estimates that there are 4.5 million children who were born to unauthorized immigrants that received citizenship via birth in the United States; while the Migration Policy Institute estimates that there are 4.1 million children. Both estimates exclude anyone eighteen and older who might have benefited.[4]
In keeping with the fact that the Constitution makes the "natural born citizen" requirement a matter of some interpretation, and provides for no verification process, we have to assess his circumstances with the thought that the NBC provision is meant to exclude people with competing foreign allegiances, but include everyone who would truly be free of them. I don't see where Cruz being born in Canada as a birthright citizen to parents merely there for business, and then returning at age four, excludes him, or was ever meant to.
Yes well life sucks that way sometimes.
It says "citizen" when it talks about Congressional requirements.
Because the Constitution defines two, and only two, classes of citizen: natural born and naturalized. If you are not one then you are, by default, the other. So when the Constitution talks about "citizens" then it obviously means both kinds. A naturalized citizen can serve in Congress as can a natural-born citizen. But only a natural-born citizen can be president.
If they meant Vatel's Law of Nation definition for natural born, then neither Ted nor Obama are eligible. Neither had both parents who were citizens and neither can show proof of birth in the U.S.
And if they didn't mean Vattel? If they meant Blackstone instead? Or something in between? John Jay first raised the question of the natural-born citizen requirement for the presidency. John Jay's children were born in Spain and France when he was the diplomatic representative for the colonies. Do you honestly think that John Jay would purposely disqualify his children of possibly serving as president, over illogical questions of loyalty to a country through an accident of birth? Really?
In giving Congress the authority to create uniform rules of naturalization, the Constitution by implication gives Congress the power to define natural-born citizen. Because how can you enact naturalization laws without first identifying who doesn't need to be naturalized? And if they don't need to be naturalized then they are, by default, natural born.
what’s KSA?
What a natural born person is, would then be the key and that should not be written in stone. The English Common Law interpretation is that such things are determined by male bloodlines, yet that ignores the medical facts even though we now know they simply should not be. I mean what is her blood line, 'chopped liver'?
After all she does confer more than half of the child`s genetic inheritance, the X chromosome being larger than the Y, and this inheritance includes the all important mitochondrial DNA. Not to mention running the medical risk of carrying and birthing the child!
His mother was an American citizen in good standing. She was legally in another nation at that time, in pursuit of legal activities. Her mate was legally her husband. The father in question was in good legal standing. He was the legal husband of the mother of the child in question. He agreed with her wish to confer her nationality to their offspring. There was no ulterior motive behind that decision or their decision to bear an offspring.
Therefore a ruling would definitely be in order. I believe the above facts should allow a woman, under such established factors, to confer that aspect of her individual sovereignty unto her progeny. So in this case it very much does follow the maternal bloodline, and rightly so. Otherwise we do propagate the concept of second class status to American women, this is not so feminist clap-trap argument, but goes to the heart of individual sovereignty. Is it equal or are men more sovereign than women?
The proponents of Cruz is NBC rely on framing the argument. NBC isn't defined in the constitution is one of the tools. Another is to work in a dichotomy of "either naturalized (by a naturalization process) or natural born, there is no other category named in the constitution."
Obviously you do not understand the concept of “derived from” which is the case. The wording “Natural born” was explained in Vattel’s The Law of Nations and was lifted directly by the Framers.
Not so fast. Where does it define them? It doesn't. It references citizens, natural born citizens and naturalized citizens. No where in the constitution does it say all people are either naturalized or natural born. So it's important to understand what the founders thought those terms meant.
Mine is a correct statement. Your argument is wishful thinking.
And post 9 says Cruz was naturalized at birth. So according to your probably false dichotomey, if Cruz was naturalized, then he’s not natural born.
My post 115 addresses the dichotomy by separating NBC as a tighter qualifier and not a separate category of citizen. A little restructuring of the grammar makes this clear.
Check it out.
-PJ
He may, at some point, demand the debate be stifled. From my point of view, the debate is exhausted anyway, or pretty close to it. I can't think of any new arguments, mostly the action is repetition of the same old stuff. The volume of posts is going to naturally drop until some news report breaks from the "Cruz is NBC" pack.
Meanwhile, I know I feel free and comfortable to carry on presenting argument that reach the conclusion that Cruz is not NBC.
First, there is virtually ZERO chance of that happening because Cruz would have to win for that scenario to play out, and that ain’t gonna happen.
But let’s pretend pigs have begun flying. IMHO the left would NEVER attempt to nullify Pres Cruz. The subject matter is inseparably close to the birthright citizenship/anchor baby issue.
BTW. The irony is rich to see the same arguments used in support of Cruz the left use to “prove” the rights of anchor babies.
Great, the problem for Cruz (if the constitution is followed) is that the constitution assigns US citizenship through jus soli.
If the only authority used for finding US citizenship is the US constitution, Cruz can only be a naturalized citizen.
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