Senator Ted Cruz, (R – sociopath) may be a shameful opportunist but he wants you to know he is proud naturalized American. The kind that was born in another country and therefore probably ineligible to be President. Which clearly means “both sides” do it:
WaPo — Now the Dallas Morning News says that I may technically have dual citizenship,” Cruz said in a statement. “Assuming that is true, then sure, I will renounce any Canadian citizenship. Nothing against Canada, but I’m an American by birth and as a U.S. senator; I believe I should be only an American.” The Dallas Morning News wrote in a story posted late Sunday night that Cruz likely remains a Canadian citizen, by virtue of being born there to an American mother.
Cruz said his mother told him that he could claim his citizenship if he ever wanted to, but that he never pursued it and thought the matter was settled.
Legal experts say that Cruz is a Canadian citizen regardless of whether he asked for it or not.
I’m not sure how that works as far as the Constitution. It states clearly in Article 2 “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.” This was reportedly done to avoid icky European monarchical influence back in the day.
That’s understandable in the light of colonial and Revolutionary history. But it might really mean Cruz or anyone else born on foreign soil isn’t eligible to be President. If so it’s certainly out of date and worthy of being rewritten, which is to say it’s possible pre-term Jesus didn’t hand that part to Moses from a flaming bush.
None of this would have happened if Cruz’s birther pals hadn’t kicked up a race-based fuss about Obama. There’s a certain fitting irony there. It’s equally ironic that Mitt Romney wasn’t quite a full-blooded American according to some people because he was born a Mormon and John McCain might be challenged because he was born in the Panama Canal Zone. McCain’s eligibility is probably legally justified even with a narrow reading of Article 2, the zone was technically a US territory or Commonwealth or one of those gray regions at the time of McCain’s birth.
So, sorry about the misleading lede, I haven’t seen much in the way of both sides do it on this. Probably for good reason, both sides don’t, only one does. I worked against McCain-Palin with everything I had and celebrated, near ecstatic, the night they lost by a wide margin. But I am nowhere near the lone, brave progressive voice saying it: no matter the party or the circumstances, anyone who survived years of torture as an American POW in an enemy camp more than deserves the opportunity to run for any elected office they wish. If that’s not a no-brainer I don’t know what is.
I’d like to see the way cleared for Cruz as well. I relish the thought of trouncing him fair and square even more. But I think he may be engaging in wishful thinking: Cruz’s biggest obstacle to the Oval Office isn’t his birth certificate among progressives and independents in a general election, it’s the color of his skin and familial surname among his fellow right-wing Republicans in the qualifying clown car primary.
This is actually my situation as well. Mom’s an American, and I was registered as an American citizen born abroad, and thus have both a Quebec record of birth, and an American birth certificate.
I think Cruz should be a lifetime appointee to the only thing he is qualified to do: clean feces out of porta-pottys.
This has actually been resolved, both by Congress and by precedent — when Mitt Romney’s father was running (he was born in Mexico) Congress passed a statute clarifying that if your parents were American then you were eligible. And John McCain ran without a single complaint about the fact that he was born in the Panama Canal Zone. (Actually, there was a law-school professor, I think at the U. of Chicago, who published an editorial saying that there was a case to be made that because the Canal Zone was a US possession at the time, McCain wasn’t eligible under that statute, but it never mounted to anything more than an academic exercise, IIRC.)
At least he can get decent health care when he needs it.
What’s more of a problem for him is that, despite being a Harvard Magna cum Laude law graduate, he claims he had no idea that being born in Canada granted him Canadian citizenship.
That’s pretty basic. A lawyer who pontificates on immigration and citizenship but doesn’t understand the principle of Jus Soli? Must be an incompetent lawyer.
Randomfactor -04:
To be entitled to Canadian Health care he must be both a citizen AND a resident
You have to be a natural-born citizen. Yes, it is not defined anywhere in the Constitution, but that is the eligibility requirement. But what does natural-born mean?
The CRS issued a report on this matter a couple of years back: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42097.pdf
In conjunction with the XIV Amendment
and the key paragraph in the CRS report:
We can say that there are only two kinds of citizens: natural born and naturalized. As far as is known, Ted Cruz was born of at least one parent that was a US citizen who had been so for the requisite number of years, and Ted Cruz was a US citizen at birth. That is, he was not born exclusively Canadian and then naturalized later. Well, if he was never naturalized and is considered a US citizen, he is by process of elimination a natural-born citizen since there is no other kind.
Obama’s case was more open-and-shut since he was born in Hawaii.
So his mother was a US citizen at the time of his birth? I want to see HER birth certificate!!
The Canadian bith certificate is a fake. This is just a Commie trick to get him shipped off to Canada. He belongs in the USA (but please don’t vote for him…).
Signed: The People of Canada.