For years a large majority of the Republican Party was vehement about
Barrack Obama’s ineligibility for the highest office in the nation. The Constitution explicitly states that to qualify for the Presidency a candidate must be a “natural born citizen.”
According to the Obama administration, because Obama’s mother was a U.S. citizen and because he was reportedly born in Hawaii, he has the necessary qualifications to be President. But many, dubbed “birthers” by Obama supporters, still believe he was born in Kenya. If true, the argument goes, he would not be qualified to hold the Executive office because regardless of his mother’s citizenship, he was not born on U.S. soil. The latter is a legitimate argument and one that appears to be supported by the Constitution, though no court has ever clearly defined the meaning of a “natural born citizen.”
Republican Presidential candidate Ted Cruz has a similar problem as he was born in Canada. Unlike Senator John McCain, who was born on a U.S. military base in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936, Cruz was born in Canadian and on Canadian land.
Cruz argues that because his mother is a U.S. citizen, and because he had dual nationality and renounced his Canadian citizenship after he turned 18, he qualifies as a natural born citizen.
But according to a
report from Karl Denninger at
The Market Ticker, Canadian law in 1970 when Cruz was born makes it clear that no such dual nationality existed at the time, making it impossible for Cruz to have been a Canadian citizen AND a U.S. citizen at the same time:
There’s a clean question on the table regarding dual citizenship for persons born in Canada prior to 1977 (when they changed their law to officially recognize dual nationality.)
Prior to that date, with few exceptions, you could not hold dual nationality with Canada. In other words the very act of “renouncing” Canadian Citizenshipmeans that Cruz never held US citizenship at birth because his parents had to declare his nationality at the time he was born.
There may be exceptions that were available at the time but the law now is immaterial.
The only material fact is what the law was then, in 1970, in Canada when Cruz was born.
If his parents declared US for him then he had nothing to renounce and he has a document called a Consular Report of Birth Abroad.
This is the legal equivalent of a US Birth Certificate and Cruz either has one from the time of his birth or he does not. If he does not then he is not a US Citizen as he was never naturalized by his own admission and at birth the nation in which he was born did not recognize dual nationality.
Where is that document Cruz? Your mother’s birth certificate is immaterial. What matters is whether you were declared a Canadian or US Citizen at birth and what documentation you have to prove it.
You see, in 1970 there was no “and” option.
Cruz either has that Consular Report of Birth Abroad, which is his legal proof of US Citizenship just as my Birth Certificate is mine, or he doesn’t and he’s not a citizen at all as his parents declared his citizenship as Canadian and the land he were born in prohibited dual nationality at the time.
If he doesn’t have that document, of course, there’s a little problem with the office Senator Cruz holds now, say much less his running for President.
Incidentally, Senator John McCain himself, who was unanimously declared a “natural born citizen” by the Senate ahead of his Presidential run,
questions Cruz’s eligibility:
McCain, who has long clashed with Cruz in the Senate, said on KFYI Wednesday that “it’s worth looking into” whether Cruz is a natural born citizen, a requirement to be president.
…
When asked how Cruz could run for president if he was born in Canada, McCain answered, “I do not know the answer to that.”
Donald Trump and others have made the argument that should Cruz win the Republican Primary there is absolutely no doubt that Ted Cruz’s eligibility will come into play and be brought to the forefront by Clinton or Sanders.
Cruz believes the law is on his side, but Denninger’s report makes it clear that Ted Cruz could not possibly have been a U.S. citizen at the same time as he was a Canadian citizen. That is a matter of record.
The fact is that all of the hoopla over Obama’s birth certificate becomes moot, because in this respect his eligibility is significantly more credible than that of Ted Cruz. At the very least, if Barrack Obama was born in Kenya, his mother’s citizenship, according to Ted Cruz, qualifies him to be President.
It is the opinion of this author that the framers of the Constitution intended a “natural born citizen” to be an individual born on U.S. soil (including U.S. military bases abroad or U.S. territories). The citizenship of the individual’s parents at his or her birth should be irrelevant.
Under these consideration, if Obama was born in Hawaii as is claimed, then he is distinctly qualified for the Presidency of the United States.
If he was born in Kenya, just as Ted Cruz was born in Canada, his status as a natural born citizen is non-existent, and thus neither would be Constitutionally qualified to be President.
Whatever the case, should Ted Cruz win the Republican primary, you better believe his eligibility status will come into question by “birthers” in the Democrat Party.
The responsible thing for Ted Cruz to do right now is to admit this will become a question in coming months and to take himself to court or before Congress to determine, unequivocally, whether or not he is eligible to be President of the United States, or for that matter, whether or not he is eligible to be a United States Senator.
