Posted on 08/19/2013 6:17:17 PM PDT by kristinn
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) announced Monday evening that he will renounce his Canadian citizenship, less than 24 hours after a newspaper pointed out that the Canadian-born senator likely maintains dual citizenship.
“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.”
SNIP
“Because I was a U.S. citizen at birth, because I left Calgary when I was 4 and have lived my entire life since then in the U.S., and because I have never taken affirmative steps to claim Canadian citizenship, I assumed that was the end of the matter,” Cruz said.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
“No, they didn’t.”
You need to read the constitution.
Article II Section 1
http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleii
“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.”
Every president up to van Buren was Grandfathered as an exception to the NBC clause in the US constitution.
This is *basic* US civics. You need to reread the constitution.
Where is it stated in USA documents that citizenship is dependent on only one parent?
One thing bothers me about Cruz, One thing only.
He is a Harvard Lawyer.
“According to President George Washington and our First Congress - nearly half of the Signers of the Constitution in all - it isn’t.”
How many of the signers were born outside of the 13 colonies? How many American presidents were born outside of the 13 colonies? 7? 5? 3? 1? or 0?
“Where is it stated in USA documents that citizenship is dependent on only one parent?”
1790 Naturalization clause states that citizenship can only be transferred through the father. Cruz’s father not being a citizen would disqualify him under the 1790 clause.
Didn’t you just say that he wasn’t a Canadian citizen, than it turns out that he’s always been one?
Interesting quiz time - has there ever been a time when Cruz possessed American citizenship without his Canadian citizenship?
Yeah, as of today.
Of course I've heard of the grandfather clause. I've also read what historians and legal scholars throughout US history have written about it.
And I've also discussed the grandfather clause pretty extensively in places like here and here.
Mark Steyn can never be President as he has allegiance to Canada.
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=0c2ff5bc-651d-4cac-a822-4a79b392fed1
I would love to hear him weigh in on this.
Cruz has never declared allegiance to Canada or Cuba, although those citizenship’s may have been conveyed upon him.
In the end isn’t it a question of allegiance?
Every president up to van Buren was Grandfathered as an exception to the NBC clause in the US constitution.
This is *basic* US civics. You need to reread the constitution.
No, they weren't.
Historians have agreed throughout US history that all of our early Presidents were natural born citizens; that the grandfather clause was not for the sake of George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, etc., but that it was for the likes of Alexander Hamilton (born on the island of Nevis in the Caribbean) and James Wilson (born in Scotland) that the grandfather clause was passed.
No serious historian has ever claimed otherwise.
Here is some documentation that establishes that fact.
“It was doubtless introduced (for it has now become by lapse of time merely nominal, and will soon become wholly extinct) out of respect to those distinguished revolutionary patriots, who were born in a foreign land, and yet had entitled themselves to high honours in their adopted country….” United States Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution (1833)
“The exception as to those who were citizens at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, was justly due to those men who had united themselves with the fate of the new nation, and rendered eminent services in achieving its independence ; and is, necessarily, of limited continuance.” James Bayard, A brief exposition of the Constitution of the United States, pg. 96 (1833)
“Why was this exception then made ? From gratitude to those distinguished foreigners who had taken part with us during the Revolution.” John Seely Hart, A Brief Exposition of the Constitution of the United States, pg. 71 (1860)
“The idea then arose that no number of years could properly prepare a foreigner for the office of president; but as men of other lands had spilled their blood in the cause of the United States, and had assisted at every stage of the formation of their institutions, the committee of states who were charged with all unfinished business proposed, on the fourth of September, that ” no person except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the tune of the adoption of this constitution, should be eligible to the office of president.” George Bancroft, History of the formation of the Constitution of the United States of America pg 346 (1866)
“The exception in favor of such persons of foreign birth as were citizens of the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, is now practically extinct. The distinguished patriots who had so faithfully served their adopted country during the revolutionary struggle, and out of respect and gratitude to whom this exception was introduced into the Constitution, have all passed away. No one, therefore, but a natural born citizen can now be elected to the office of President.” Henry Flanders, An Exposition of the Constitution of the United States (1877)
“The exception to the “natural born” qualification was the Convention’s way of paying an extraordinary compliment to Alexander Hamilton and James Wilson, two distinguished members of the Convention who were foreign born. Of course, any other foreign- born citizen having the other qualifications would have been eligible, but the clause was drawn in favor of the two statesmen here mentioned.” Edward Waterman Townsend, Our Constitution: Why and how it was Made – who Made It, and what it is pg 186 (1906)
This understanding is also confirmed by James Madison's reasoning in the Smith case. He said, in essence, that Smith had been a citizen of the community that would become the State of South Carolina since his very birth:
"I conceive the colonies remained as a political society, detached from their former connection with another society, without dissolving into a state of nature; but capable of substituting a new form of government in the place of the old one, which they had for special considerations abolished. Suppose the state of South Carolina should think proper to revise her constitution, abolish that which now exists, and establish another form of government: Surely this would not dissolve the social compact. It would not throw them back into a state of nature. It would not dissolve the union between the individual members of that society. It would leave them in perfect society, changing only the mode of action, which they are always at liberty to arrange. Mr. Smith being then, at the declaration of independence, a minor, but being a member of that particular society, he became, in my opinion, bound by the decision of the society with respect to the question of independence and change of government; and if afterward he had taken part with the enemies of his country, he would have been guilty of treason against that government to which he owed allegiance, and would have been liable to be prosecuted as a traitor."
What happened when his Cuban born father became an Americn citizen AFTER Ted was born ???
Was Ted’s name included in his father;s naturalization as a minor child in need of naturalization also ???
Ted would not have gone through the naturalizatio n process himself as he may have still been a minor but his father would have sworn alleigence for him in his place...
Has anyone checked that possibility ???
When you become an American citizen your under aged children can be included too..
Any children already adults (over 18) at that time get naturalized on their own in their own right etc..
How old was Ted when his Dad became a US citizen ???
“No, they weren’t.”
The constitution explicitly states that those eligible for the presidency are either a Natural Born Citizen of the United States OR a citizen AT THE TIME of the WRITING OF THE US CONSTITUTION.
This is the ‘grandfather clause’, that Grandfathered the presidents born prior to the signing of the US constitution in 1787, presidents Washington through to van Buren.
In any case, once again - the constitution is right and you are wrong.
I agree.
And I couldn’t care less that he has a dual citizenship, especially with Canada leading the way in conservative politics over the past several years.
Besides I’ve spent my entire life in the northern tier inland states along the Canadian border, and I feel much more affinity toward our Mackinaw wearing friends than I do, say, toward most of the U.S. West or East Coast.
“How old was Ted when his Dad became a US citizen ???”
Ted’s father became a US citizen in 2005.
Plus I dont believe for a minute that Ted would not know exactly what his status or actual citizenship was..
Too be in the US Senate he would have had to undergo strict security clearances for a start..
His Canadian/American dual citizenship would have been discovered...
I never said he wasn’t a Canadian citizen.
You need to keep straight who said what, if you are going to attempt to carry on multiple conversations at once.
Born.......in.......Canada. nuff said. if we can’t find one American among three hundred million........come on now. .......by the way, was Cruz ever in the military?
“Too be in the US Senate he would have had to undergo strict security clearances for a start..”
To be in the U.S. Senate, one needs to win an election.
I believe the founders intended it to all be a matter of allegiance, Sacred Oath.
Obama Has never fulfilled these requirements,
He has been obsscure and shadowy from day one.
He continues to be so and has magnified his shadow skulking in bad deeds, while getting brazen.
He hates America.
He undoes us at every turn.
Ted Cruz was never naturalized because he was always an American citizen.
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