Donald Trump: Ted Cruz ineligible to be President if born in Canada?

[ObiRandKenobi]

(a) you have to be born on u.s. soil to be a "natural born citizen"

(b) you are a "natural born citizen" if one of your parents is a citizen, regardless of locale, by virtue of the fact that you don't need to go through the naturalization process to become a citizen (which is the argument cruz himself makes)

which is it?



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktrnqahlD0A

If you’re keeping score at home…

- Byron York: Eligible (http://www.mofopolitics.com/2013/03/09/byron-york-ted-cruz-undoubtedly-meets-eligibility-requirements-for-president-of-the-united-states/)
- Congressional Research Office: Eligible (http://www.mofopolitics.com/2013/03/09/byron-york-ted-cruz-undoubtedly-meets-eligibility-requirements-for-president-of-the-united-states/)
- Temple University Professor Peter Spiro: Eligible (http://www.mofopolitics.com/2013/05/06/were-all-birthers-now-chuck-todd-wonders-if-ted-cruz-is-eligible-to/)
- Laura Ingraham: “Pretty sure” (http://www.mofopolitics.com/2013/07/12/laura-ingraham-is-only-pretty-sure-that-ted-cruz-is-eligible-to-be-president/)
- Chuck Todd: Undecided (http://www.mofopolitics.com/2013/05/06/were-all-birthers-now-chuck-todd-wonders-if-ted-cruz-is-eligible-to/)
- Carl Cameron: Ineligible (http://www.mofopolitics.com/2013/03/09/byron-york-ted-cruz-undoubtedly-meets-eligibility-requirements-for-president-of-the-united-states/)
- Birther Report: Ineligible (http://obamareleaseyourrecords.blogspot.com/2013/03/breitbart-news-wrongly-declares-cruz-eligible.html)


h/t MP (http://www.mofopolitics.com/2013/08/11/donald-trump-ted-cruz-is-ineligible-to-be-president-if-he-was-born-in-canada/)

[FrankRep]

http://thenewamerican.com/media/k2/items/cache/8061214d9a5c61589552354e5511c85d_M.jpg (http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/14163-texas-sen-ted-cruz-constitutionally-qualified-to-be-president)


Questions have arisen regarding freshman Senator Ted Cruz's qualifications for president, specifically whether he is a natural born citizen as required by Article II.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz: Constitutionally Qualified to be President? (http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/14163-texas-sen-ted-cruz-constitutionally-qualified-to-be-president)

The New American (http://www.thenewamerican.com/)
10 January 2013


....
There’s the rub, constitutionally speaking. Cruz’s north-of-the-border nativity added to his father’s Cuban nationality might add up to his being disqualified before he even steps up to the blocks to run for the White House.

The bundle begins to unravel, however, when one begins to wade into the historical origins of the “natural born citizen” phrase used in Article II of the Constitution. The Constitution does not define natural born citizenship, neither have Supreme Court and Congress. The term "natural born citizen" comes from the English concept of "natural born subject," which came from Calvin's Case, a 1608 decision (http://www.commonlii.org/int/cases/EngR/1572/64.pdf).

Natural born subjects were those who owed allegiance to the king at birth under the "law of nature." The court concluded that under natural law, certain people owed duties to the king, and were entitled to his protection, even in the absence of a law passed by Parliament.

Let's explore the possible sources and appropriate interpretations of the “natural born citizen” qualification.
...


Full Article:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/14163-texas-sen-ted-cruz-constitutionally-qualified-to-be-president

[Keith and stuff]

My guess is that the Mexican born Romney might have been legally allowed to run for President. The Canaidian born Cruz likely isn't able to do so. It doesn't seem to be up to us. The powerful interests in DC don't care if a personal was born in Panama, Mexico, Canada or even Africa or Asia, it seems. They decide, not you, me or the law.

[FrankRep]

My guess is that the Mexican born Romney might have been legally allowed to run for President.

Mitt Romney was born in Detroit, Michigan.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/politics/story/2012-02-17/michigan-primary-santorum-romney/53159656/1

[Kilrain]

Mitt Romney was born in Detroit, Michigan.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/politics/story/2012-02-17/michigan-primary-santorum-romney/53159656/1

George, not Mitt.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Romney

[FrankRep]

George, not Mitt.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Romney

Interesting stuff.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f3/Romney_Great_for_%2768.jpg/200px-Romney_Great_for_%2768.jpg

George Romney presidential campaign, 1968 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Romney_presidential_campaign,_1968)


Eligibility

Questions were occasionally asked about Romney's eligibility to hold the office of President due to his birth in Mexico, given the ambiguity in the United States Constitution over the phrase "natural-born citizen". His Mormon paternal grandfather and his three wives had fled to Mexico in 1886, but none of them ever relinquished U.S. citizenship. Romney's parents chose U.S. citizenship for their children, including George. The family fled Mexico and came to the United States in 1912 during the Mexican Revolution.

By February 1967, some newspapers were questioning Romney's eligibility given his Mexican birth. In May 1967, the Democratic chair of the House Judiciary Committee, Emanuel Celler, said he had "serious doubts" about whether Romney was eligible, but had no plans to formally challenge the matter. Another member of Congress made a case against Romney the following month. In response, the New York Law Journal published an article by a senior attorney at Sullivan & Cromwell arguing that Romney was, in fact, eligible. The Congressional Research Service also came down on Romney's side, as did most other constitutional experts at the time.

During the campaign, Romney was generally considered a viable and legal candidate for United States president. He departed the race before the matter could be more definitively resolved, although the preponderance of opinion since then has been that he was eligible.

[HOLLYWOOD]

Again another election of TRUMP inserted distraction.

[Dr.3D]

Again another election of TRUMP inserted distraction.
Somebody should tell him to either sh!t or get off the pot.

[randpaul2016]

so someone born in Europe can become president if a parent was american citizen?

-dual citizenship?

[Keith and stuff]

so someone born in Europe can become president if a parent was american citizen?

-dual citizenship?

Yes to Europe. Dual citizens, no. But really, there seem to be no standards at all in practice.

[TaftFan]

www.texastribune.org/2012/08/13/texplainer-could-canadian-born-ted-cruz-be-preside/

Texplainer: Could Canadian-Born Ted Cruz Be President?

Hey, Texplainer: Ted Cruz is so hot right now, some people are saying he could run for president. But Cruz wasn’t born in the U.S., so how does that affect his ability to run for the highest office?

Since Ted Cruz won the Republication nomination for U.S. Senate on July 31, columns have been written about Cruz as a potential presidential candidate in 2016 or beyond — and whether the circumstances of his birth may preclude him from some day running for the highest office.

Cruz was born (http://www.texastribune.org/texas-people/ted-cruz/about/) in the Canadian city of Calgary, Alberta, on Dec. 22, 1970. He is the son of a Cuban-immigrant father and an Irish-American mother from Delaware. At the time of his birth, Cruz's parents were in Canada working in the oil industry. Both of his parents attended college in Texas and returned here around the time Cruz was 4 years ol (http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/headlines/20120428-senate-candidate-ted-cruz-aims-to-pick-up-mantle-of-reagan.ece)d.

In some ways, Cruz’s story is similar to that of the two candidates who ran for president in 2008, Barack Obama and John McCain.

Both Cruz and Obama are the sons of American mothers and immigrant fathers. Like McCain, Cruz was born outside of the United States. (McCain was born in the unincorporated Panama Canal Zone in 1936.)

And, like some people are already doing with Cruz, both Obama and McCain had their eligibility for president questioned.

As with those candidates, constitutional experts say that there could be a candidate Cruz.

“He almost certainly was a citizen at birth. I think that he would be eligible for the presidency,” said Peter Spiro, a professor of constitutional law at Temple University.

What does the law say?

Article 2 of the Constitution (http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_United_States_of_America#Artic le_II) lays out the three minimum requirements for a person to be the president of the United States.

“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.”

Cruz is 41 years old, and has been a Texas resident for well over 14 years. The sticking point, says Brandon Rottinghaus, a professor of political science at the University of Houston, comes from what the definition of a “natural born citizen” is, and whether Cruz’s Canadian birthplace is addressed by the law.

“Natural born citizenship is not defined in the Constitution,” Rottinghaus said. “The reason they didn’t is not totally clear.”

Rottinghaus said that the writers probably meant to include both people born on U.S. soil and those born to citizens, but ultimately left the decision to be made by the states.

The Naturalization Act of 1790 (http://rs6.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=001/llsl001.db&recNum=226), passed by the First Congress, reads that any person "born beyond the sea or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens."

Citizenship was not directly addressed in the Constitution until the 14th Amendment was passed in 1868. Its first sentence reads, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”

A naturalized citizen is a citizen who was not a U.S. citizen at birth but later becomes one. Scholars generally agree that a naturalized citizen, such as an immigrant, could not be elected president. The 14th Amendment (http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_amendments_11-27.html), however, does not define what is considered a “natural-born citizen.”

The Nationality Act of 1940 (http://library.uwb.edu/guides/usimmigration/54%20stat%201137.pdf) outlined which children became “nationals and citizens of the United States at birth.” The law stated that a person is a U.S. citizen if he or she were born in United States; born outside the U.S. to parents who were both citizens; found in the United States without parents and no proof of birth elsewhere; or if a person has been born to one American parent, provided that parent has spent a certain number of years in the United States.

The single-American parent requirement has been amended (http://uscode.house.gov/uscode-cgi/fastweb.exe?getdoc+uscview+t05t08+5242+1++%28%27Na tionals%20and%20citizens%20of%20United%20States%20 at%20birth%27%29%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20) a few times, said UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh. As it applies to people born between 1952 and 1986, they must have a parent who was a U.S. citizen for at least 10 years, including five after the age of 14, in order for the baby to be considered a natural-born citizen.

(Note: Volokh calls himself a friend of Cruz and has known him since the 1990s*. However, Volokh also made the same conclusion about eligibility in 2008 (http://www.volokh.com/archives/archive_2008_11_30-2008_12_06.shtml#1227910730), when writing about Barack Obama.)

So how does all of this apply to Ted Cruz?

Cruz’s father, Rafael Cruz, came to the U.S. in 1957 to study at the University of Texas. He did not become a U.S. citizen until 2005 (http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CGQQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Flatino.foxnews.com%2Flatino%2Fpol itics%2F2012%2F04%2F15%2Fted-cruz-texas-answer-to-marco-rubio%2F&ei=MXwlUKTkEsfi2gWZ24HwDA&usg=AFQjCNFGW5-6EUF3OfQnt__C0fvp33dX8g&sig2=nwp9gKAT-ZsuYAW3S8az5g).

Cruz’s mother, Eleanor Darragh, was born in Delaware and later moved to Houston. She graduated from Rice University in 1956 (http://news.rice.edu/2012/08/02/dateline-rice-for-aug-2-2012/). By virtue of being born in the United States, she is a citizen. Because she spent most of her life before Ted Cruz was born in the U.S., he also qualified as U.S. citizen at birth.

“Ted Cruz didn’t naturalize. He was natural at birth,” said Spiro, the Temple professor

Spiro said it’s possible that a person could challenge that the laws granting citizenship at birth do not define what it is to be a natural-born citizen. In fact, the phrase “natural-born citizen” is only used once in the U.S. Code — in Article 2 of the Constitution. Such a challenge would be unlikely to change the current definitions, however, he said.

What about those other guys?

Cruz’s situation probably falls somewhere between Obama and McCain in terms of how complicated they are to explain.

Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961, two years after Hawaii became a state. His citizenship is spelled out by the 14th Amendment.

Cruz was born outside the U.S., but according to rules set out by the U.S. Code, he was a U.S. citizen from birth.

McCain was born outside the U.S., but not in another country — the Panama Canal Zone was an unincorporated U.S. territory in 1936. Legal theories differ on how that affected his eligibility. McCain was also born before laws were passed granting citizenship at birth to babies born in the Panama Canal Zone.

For what it’s worth, Congress in 2008 (http://www.opencongress.org/bill/110-sr511/text) passed a nonbinding resolution declaring that McCain was eligible to run for president, and a lawsuit (http://www.scribd.com/doc/8873003/Fred-Hollander-v-Senator-John-McCain-Republican-National-Committee) challenging McCain’s eligibility in 2008 filed New Hampshire was thrown out for lack of standing.

Bottom line: Despite being born in Canada, Cruz can be considered a natural-born U.S. citizen because his mother was also a U.S. citizen who lived in the United States long enough for him to qualify, according to constitutional experts.

[NativeOne]

STOP USING CONFUSING DRIBBLE !!! KEEP IT SIMPLE. :confused:

BOTH PARENTS MUST BE AMERICAN CITIZENS AT THE TIME OF YOUR BIRTH (NATURAL BORN ONLY IF BOTH PARENTS ARE CITIZENS)...PERIOD !!!

IT DOES NOT MATTER WHERE THE CHILD WAS BORN IF BOTH PARENTS ARE AMERICAN CITIZENS AT THE TIME OF BIRTH. IT ONLY MATTERS HOW LONG HE OR SHE WAS IN COUNTRY PRIOR TO RUNNING FOR OFFICE !!!:cool:

RUBIO IS NOT NATURAL BORN either, because neither of his parents were american citizens at the time of his birth...don't let the fools in Washington or the media avoid the real issue.

[Sola_Fide]

This guy is such an idiot. He offers nothing to any debate.

[FrankRep]

This guy is such an idiot. He offers nothing to any debate.
Some would call Donald Trump a marketing genius, however.

[thoughtomator]

It doesn't matter where you were born. What matters is if your parents owed their allegiance (as established by citizenship) to the United States. If so and you meet all other requirements, you are eligible. If not, you are not eligible.