This “illegal immigrant” crap is ridiculous, but it reveals another layer of the Ted Cruz - NBC onion which should concern his supporters.
The CRBA is not a citizenship document. You can be a US citizen at birth and NEVER have a CRBA. Without it, it is more difficult to PROVE your citizenship, true, but it would not have been illegal for little Ted to enter the US in 1974 without one.
HOWEVER.
In addition to aggregating other sources of evidence to prove citizenship, a timely application at or shortly after birth proves INTENT on the part of parents for you to live your life as a US citizen. If I were a judge and I had to rule on a complicated NBC case (and this case IS complicated), one of the factors IN FAVOR OF NBC status would be the absence of confusion about what your parents intended for you at the time of your birth.
If it’s true that not-so-young Ted didn’t apply for a CRBA until 1986, it suggests that his parents were uncertain about which citizenship status they desired for him at birth, or even which status would confer the most advantages (remember, Uncle Sam was still giving out scholarships to Danang University in 1970, as any Americans living in Canada then were well aware).
If the parents of a child born abroad showed up at the consulate the next day, saying, “here’s the newest American citizen, we are so proud to get that CRBA”, that’s evidence of INTENT. If they don’t, and in fact wait 16 years, it’s also evidence of INTENT.
Ted Cruz will be out of the race in three weeks, but this new wrinkle does make establishing his NBC status harder, IMO.
Yes it is, and that is all that it is. Perhaps you mean that a CRBA is not necessary to establish citizenship, and with that, I would agree.
child born abroad showed up at the consulate the next day, saying, “here’s the newest American citizen, we are so proud to get that CRBAâ€, that’s evidence of INTENT. If they don’t, and in fact wait 16 years, it’s also evidence of INTENT.
A brilliant legal point here.
(And as dumb as I was, you betcha I showed up at that embassy to get that document for my son ASAP.)
The CRBA is not a required document, it is the underlying documents that make up a CRBA that are required