Posted on 01/08/2013 3:15:17 PM PST by Seizethecarp
Ted Cruz may have the aura of a future presidential contender, but is he even eligible...?
The newly sworn-in Texas senator and rising Republican star was born in Canada, to a mother who was born in Delaware and Cuban father. That’s triggered a debate about whether he’s eligible for the nation’s highest office...
While there’s no legal precedent for Cruz’s situation, most constitutional scholars surveyed by POLITICO believe the 42-year-old tea party sensation would be OK.
“The problem is, no one knows what a natural born citizen is,” agreed University of California, Davis law professor Gabriel Chin, who argued in 2008 that Sen. John McCain was not eligible to be president.
Advisers to Cruz — a Harvard Law-educated appellate lawyer who has argued dozens of cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and knows a thing or two about constitutional law — say that because his mother had U.S. citizenship at the time of his birth, it transferred to him on foreign soil.
Temple University law professor Peter Spiro said Cruz has a “very strong argument” that he is indeed natural born.
While the 14th Amendment to the Constitution grants citizenship to anyone born inside the U.S., children born to American citizens outside the country attain citizenship through a law passed by Congress, according to Spiro.
“He’s a birthright citizen but his birthright citizenship derives from his parents, and the question is, does that fit with the definition of natural born citizen?” added University of Pennsylvania law professor Kermit Roosevelt. “I think it does.”
Chin, who authored a lengthy analysis on McCain’s citizenship, agreed that Cruz most likely is eligible.
Even though only Cruz’s mother was a citizen, there shouldn’t be a problem because it appears she had lived in the United States for at least 10 years, Chin said.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
I think the code is that anyone who is not Obama is not eligible.
That being said, Cruz is a promising Senator in office now for the extent of a couple of days.
We are best served to stop looking to one person, with the hope of doing as much as exhuming the late great R Reagan and just do what we need to do.
Conservatives are so busy doing what they ought to do that we don’t hone debating skills nor speak out in the public arena. WE want one person to do that for us, but it is up to conservatives now to get in and get comfortable speaking out.
It is still a free country and there still is freedom of speech.
A maxim I read can’t remember where some Christian source stated that we are not to be cowered into inaction out of fear of retaliation and anger.
The youth of this Nation need us to stop these people from destroying their future.
Let’s not allow Tom Brokaw to be the one to define us. The greatest generation is any one who practically realizes that freedom is not free.
Let’s let Ted Cruz do his job and do ours and leadership will form naturally.
I am just really ranting today.
About Obama: We don’t know if the mom renounced her US citizenship when she went with the supposed “husband” to Africa to live. If she did renounce her citizenship before Obama was born, he is not a US citizen and the grandmother says Obama was born there. The critical part is, did she renounce her US citizenship?
See, no one has researched the mom and she didn’t like this country so maybe she renounced citizenship when she was carried away with all things African, even the African “husband”. This could be the “glitch” Obama has been hiding all these years.
Mr.Cruz is an American citizen by virtue of one parent being American.
At birth, he was also a dual citizen, as his father was not an American citizen.
As such, he is not and can not be considered a natural born citizen.
That term means a person born in the country, of citizen parents. This is how it was understood by the Founders, who had three copies of Vattel’s Law of Nations, which Benjamin Franklin documented, along with its beneficial use, in a letter to one provider of the volume, used by those at the Constitutional Convention in 1787.
Senator Cruz is qualified to be a Senator, as only the office of President has the requirement in the Constitution of natural born citizen.
As for John McCain, he was not born in a military hospital,nor was he born on an American military base. He was born to in the hospital in Colon, Panama. In his case, he was born to two American parents, and his father was an American military officer. He is a natural born citizen, because his father was in service to his country, and in a foreign land under the auspices of the nation. in Vattel’s terms, the father was in the service of the King.
I would hope that Senator Cruz is a man of such character that he would not try to bend then.constitution to fit his ambitions.
As for Mr. Obama, he was born to a non American father, making him a dual citizen at birth. his American mother qualifies him to be an American citizen, however, he can never be a natural born citizen, as one parent was a non-American. Being born in Hawaii is not a determining factor-—he could have been born on the steps of the US Capitol, and that would not change his status at birth
Lastly,the 14th .amendment cannot in any circumstance grant natural born citizenship to anyone, nor can it supersede Art. II of the
Constitution .
The mom has been researched into the ground. Click the keyword at the top of the page and dig in.
The bar is down, the corral gate is open, that horse has escaped, never to be corralled again. For that matter, are we certain that there will be another presidential election?.
“If the Canal Zone was under the full jurisdiction of the United States and Jimmy Carter just up and decided unilaterally to give it away, you’d better hope Obama doesn’t get a wild hair and decide to do the same thing with wherever you reside.”
Doesn’t matter - McCain’s parents were US citizens so he is too no matter where he was born as they would have gone to the US embassey to record the birth and he would be a US citizen the date of his birth.
Obama can cut a trench and cut off Texas, but both my parents were US citizens so I always will be unless I choose to denounce my citizenship.
For anyone interested the above linked article gives a lot of background info on Ted Cruz and his family.
Nonsense.
Supreme Court cases that cite “natural born Citizen” as one born on U.S. soil to citizen parents:
The Venus, 12 U.S. 8 Cranch 253 253 (1814)
Vattel, who, though not very full to this point, is more explicit and more satisfactory on it than any other whose work has fallen into my hands, says: “The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives or indigenes are those born in the country of parents who are citizens. Society not being able to subsist and to perpetuate itself but by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights.
Shanks v. Dupont, 28 U.S. 3 Pet. 242 242 (1830)
Ann Scott was born in South Carolina before the American revolution, and her father adhered to the American cause and remained and was at his death a citizen of South Carolina. There is no dispute that his daughter Ann, at the time of the Revolution and afterwards, remained in South Carolina until December, 1782. Whether she was of age during this time does not appear. If she was, then her birth and residence might be deemed to constitute her by election a citizen of South Carolina. If she was not of age, then she might well be deemed under the circumstances of this case to hold the citizenship of her father, for children born in a country, continuing while under age in the family of the father, partake of his national character as a citizen of that country. Her citizenship, then, being prima facie established, and indeed this is admitted in the pleadings, has it ever been lost, or was it lost before the death of her father, so that the estate in question was, upon the descent cast, incapable of vesting in her? Upon the facts stated, it appears to us that it was not lost and that she was capable of taking it at the time of the descent cast.
Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857)
The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As society cannot perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their parents, and succeed to all their rights.' Again: 'I say, to be of the country, it is necessary to be born of a person who is a citizen; for if he be born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country. . . .
Minor v. Happersett , 88 U.S. 162 (1875)
The Constitution does not in words say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first.
United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898)
At common law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children, born in a country of parents who were its citizens, became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners.
Perkins v. Elg, 307 U.S. 325 (1939),
Was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that a child born in the United States to naturalized parents on U.S. soil is a natural born citizen and that the child's natural born citizenship is not lost if the child is taken to and raised in the country of the parents' origin, provided that upon attaining the age of majority, the child elects to retain U.S. citizenship "and to return to the United States to assume its duties." Not only did the court rule that she did not lose her native born Citizenship but it upheld the lower courts decision that she is a "natural born Citizen of the United States" because she was born in the USA to two naturalized U.S. Citizens.
But the Secretary of State, according to the allegation of the bill of complaint, had refused to issue a passport to Miss Elg 'solely on the ground that she had lost her native born American citizenship.' The court below, properly recognizing the existence of an actual controversy with the defendants [307 U.S. 325, 350] (Aetna Life Ins. Co. v. Haworth, 300 U.S. 227 , 57 S.Ct. 461, 108 A.L.R. 1000), declared Miss Elg 'to be a natural born citizen of the United States' (99 F.2d 414) and we think that the decree should include the Secretary of State as well as the other defendants. The decree in that sense would in no way interfere with the exercise of the Secretary's discretion with respect to the issue of a passport but would simply preclude the denial of a passport on the sole ground that Miss Elg had lost her American citizenship."
The Supreme Court of the United States has never applied the term “natural born citizen” to any other category than “those born in the country of parents who are citizens thereof”.
It matters if Panama or any other country makes a legal claim of jurisdiction upon him as a result of birth within that country.
Can you seriously envision a US President being arrested for treason by another country, and that arrest be legally recognized and upheld?
That could happen and probably would if the two countries were to be at war.
Lot of silly opinions.
Bottom line is: If was born an American citizen, then he’s probably eligible to be President.
Here is Mr. Cruz’s chance to leverage his situation.
First, no, he is basically ‘less eligible’ than Obama.
He (and Jindal and Rubio) should stand a stage, quote the SCOTUS rulings and say
“...because of these and the precedent they establish and abiding by the long understanding of our founding fathers and previous legal precedents I (we) are not eligible for the office of VP or President. I (we) will not run for these offices and will not accept nominations for these offices.”
There is not knowing and then here is ignoring. We know, they ignore.
Then why is he the POTUS, and why every bill he signs become legitimate law? Logically following the events, if one is born in Hawaii of one American citizen parent, one is eligible to be legitimate POTUS, as the ONE proves every day.
Why, you ask?
Because fifty Secretaries of State, the entire Democrat Party leadership, and 535 members of Congress don’t give a hoot about what the .constitution stays.
It doesn’t make it right, and it does not excuse their perfidy.
Stays =says in previous post.
Depends on what his immigration file with DHS says.
SURVEY OF THE LAW OF EXPATRIATION
It is now well settled that anyone may renounce his United States citizenship. (2)
(2. Hundreds of American citizens renounce their citizenship every year. See Richard A. Westin, Expatriation and Return: An Examination of Tax-Driven Expatriation by United States Citizens, and Reform Proposals, 20 Va. Tax Rev. 75, 98 (2000) (listing annual renunciation rates for 1980-1994).)
“In 1794 and 1797, many members of Congress still adhered to the English doctrine of perpetual allegiance and doubted whether a citizen could even voluntarily renounce his citizenship. By 1818, however, almost no one doubted the existence of the right of voluntary expatriation.” Afroyim v. Rusk, 387 U.S. 253, 258 (1967)(3)
(3. See also Right of Expatriation, 9 Op. Att’y Gen. 356, 358 (1859) (”the general right, in one word, of expatriation, is incontestible”); Savorgnan v. United States, 338 U.S. 491, 497 (1950) (”Traditionally the United States has supported the right of expatriation as a natural and inherent right of all people.”); Nishikawa v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 129, 139 (1958) (Black, J., concurring) (”Of course a citizen has the right to abandon or renounce his citizenship”); Lozada Colon v. United States Dep’t of State, 2 F. Supp. 2d 43, 45 (D.D.C. 1998) (assuming that “an individual has a fundamental right to expatriate”). )
In 1868, Congress declared that “the right of expatriation is a natural and inherent right of all people, indispensable to the enjoyment of the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Act of July 27, 1868, ch. 249, 15 Stat. 223, 223 (1868); see also 8 U.S.C. § 1481 note (2000) (quoting R.S. § 1999) (same). That declaration further stated that “any declaration, instruction, opinion, order, or decision of any officers of this government which denies, restricts, impairs, or questions the right of expatriation, is hereby declared inconsistent with the fundamental principles of this government.” 15 Stat. at 224.
By virtue of its express power “[t]o establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization,” U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 4, Congress has an implied power to set the terms of U.S. citizenship, including the power to expatriate.(4)
(4. It was once thought that, because the Naturalization Clause contained no express provision for Congressional power to expatriate a U.S. citizen against his will, no such authority existed. U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 4. As Chief Justice Marshall stated in dictum in Osborn v. Bank of the United States, 22 U.S. (9 Wheat.) 738 (1824), “[a] naturalized citizen . . . becomes a member of the society, possessing all the rights of a native citizen, and standing, in the view of the constitution, on the footing of a native. The constitution does not authorize Congress to enlarge or abridge those rights. The simple power of the national legislature is, to prescribe a uniform rule of naturalization, and the exercise of this power exhausts it, so far as respects the individual.” Id. at 827. In Perez v. Brownell, 356 U.S. 44 (1958), the Court found an inherent federal power, beyond the express terms of the Constitution, to forcibly expatriate U.S. citizens, as a necessary attribute of sovereignty. See id. at 57 (concluding that power to expatriate necessarily arose out of federal power to conduct foreign relations (citing United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp., 299 U.S. 304, 318 (1936))). That view was abrogated, however, in Afroyim. See Afroyim, 387 U.S. at 257 (”This power cannot, as Perez indicated, be sustained as an implied attribute of sovereignty possessed by all nations. . . . Our Constitution governs us and we must never forget that our Constitution limits the Government to those powers specifically granted or those that are necessary and proper to carry out the specifically granted ones.”).
Under the Court’s current jurisprudence, the Naturalization Clause empowers Congress to expatriate U.S. citizens without obtaining their consent, but only with respect to naturalized citizens who fall outside the protection of the Citizenship Clause. Individuals not protected by the Citizenship Clause acquire U.S. citizenship, if at all, solely by an act of Congress enacted pursuant to the Naturalization Clause, and not pursuant to the Constitution itself. See Rogers v. Bellei, 401 U.S. 815, 830 (1971) (Citizenship Clause does “’not touch[] the acquisition of citizenship by being born abroad of American parents; and has left that subject to be regulated, as it had always been, by Congress, in the exercise of the power conferred by the Constitution to establish an uniform rule of naturalization’”) (quoting United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 688 (1898)); see also note 6. With respect to such individuals, Congress’s power under the Naturalization Clause includes the power to set conditions subsequent to naturalization, failure of which may result in expatriation without consent. See Bellei, 401 U.S. at 834 (”it does not make good constitutional sense, or comport with logic, to say, on the one hand, that Congress [in exercising its authority under the Naturalization Clause] may impose a condition precedent, with no constitutional complication, and yet be powerless to impose precisely the same condition subsequent”). )
See MEMORANDUM OPINION FOR THE SOLICITOR GENERAL, http://www.justice.gov/olc/expatriation.htm#N_2_
Call me paranoid but I think this is a left setup to take Cruz out. He is popular and that can’t stand. The left will take him down even if they need to make up charges. Right now they are trying to get him exposed as much as they can just waiting for him to make a slip then they will attempt to rip him apart.
Yes! The Cruz adoration has already begun here on FR. Now, perhaps he deserves it; perhaps he doesn't. But we can't possibly know yet.
For Pete's sake, give the guy a couple years in office before pledging your first-born son to him.
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