Experts Agree: Trump Is Wrong, Ted Cruz Is Eligible for the White House

The Blaze ^ | Jan. 6, 2016 | Chris Enloe

[Isara]

According to constitutional scholars, Donald Trump is wrong: Ted Cruz's Canadian birth will not prove to be an impediment for him or the Republican Party in 2016.

Those who say the Texas senator is not eligible to be president typically make their case by arguing that because he was born in Canada he is not a "natural born citizen," which is a constitutional requirement for anyone seeking the presidency.

However, because Cruz's mother, Eleanor, was a United States citizen at the time of his birth, experts largely agree that Cruz is, indeed, a natural born citizen. Cruz, prior to the run-up to his presidential bid, even renounced his dual-citizenship with Canada in 2014.

Further, because Cruz never had to petition the U.S. government for citizenship, he is most certainly considered a natural born U.S. citizen. Any citizen who is not a naturalized citizen - meaning they had to earn their citizenship - then they are a natural born citizen.

Two former U.S. solicitors general, Neal Katyal and Paul Clement, who are experts in this field, laid out the legal case in the Harvard Law Review last March. They said:

Despite the happenstance of a birth across the border, there is no question that Senator Cruz has been a citizen from birth and is thus a "natural born Citizen" within the meaning of the Constitution. Indeed, because his father had also been resident in the United States, Senator Cruz would have been a "natural born Citizen" even under the Naturalization Act of 1790.

Moreover, Sarah Duggan a law professor and director of the Law and Public Policy Program for the Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University of America, reaffirmed the legal standing for Cruz's eligibility in a 2013 piece for Constitution Daily:

A scholarly consensus is emerging, however, that anyone who acquires citizenship at birth is natural born for purposes of Article II.

This consensus rests on firm foundations. First, given Jay's letter and the language of the 1790 naturalization act, it seems evident that the framers were worried about foreign princes, not children born to American citizens living abroad. Second, the 14-year residency requirement Article II also imposes as a presidential prerequisite ensures that, regardless of their place of birth, would-be presidents must spend a significant time living in the United States before they can run for office.

Finally, the natural born citizenship clause is both an anomaly and an anachronism. The way in which the clause differentiates among United States citizens is contrary to the overall spirit of the Constitution; the risk that foreign nobility will infiltrate our government is long past; and place of birth is a poor surrogate for loyalty to one's homeland in our increasingly mobile society and our ever more interconnected world.

Republican front-runner Donald Trump reintroduced the issue of Cruz's presidential eligibility Tuesday during an interview with the Washington Post.

"It'd be a very precarious one for Republicans because he'd be running and the courts may take a long time to make a decision," Trump said of Cruz, noting that Cruz wouldn't want that "hanging over his head."

Despite the overall consensus being that Cruz meets every requirement to be president, because a modern president has never been born outside of a U.S. territory, Trump may have a point: If Cruz does go on to win the Republican nomination and the general election, he will likely face a lawsuit from a dissenter who claims that he is not eligible.

However, in this scenario, a decision from a federal court, likely the Supreme Court, would not take a "long time" as Trump suggests, since the high court would likely take jurisdiction over the case.

It appears that, at least constitutionally, Cruz has no roadblocks on his journey to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

[plain talk]

Beat me to it. I’m a Cruz supporter but trump just said cruz has some “baggage” or risk if you will that could end up in court. He didn’t say that much about it really.

[jacquej]

My worry/question is about Cruz’s mother.

Did she give up her USA citizenship while she was living in Canada, and become a Canadian citizen for tax reasons? If so, how does that affect Ted’s citizenship?

How did Ted’s parents come back into the USA if she assumed Canadian citizenship (if) - and, how did Ted’s dad get a green card to enter?

I have to assume she didn’t give up her USA citizenship, but I worry.

[nickcarraway]

And they were right.

[Lagmeister]

The mud and the lies never end. No wonder Cruz can’t get 100% support of the Evangelicals. His supporters are driving them away.

[Vaquero]

Trump never said Cruz was not eligible. Time for the lying articles to stick to the truth.

Bingo

[Cobra64]

Yeah, apparently typical of Glen Beck's, "The Blaze" spouting this crap.

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

-— As long as Obozo got away with it, it is all okay. -—

And McCain.

Cruz won’t fold for some baseless lawsuits.

[odawg]

Beck hates Trump, loves Cruz. Obvious source of objectivity.

[Godebert]

The Harvard Law Review Article by Neal Katyal and Paul Clement Taken Apart Piece by Piece and Utterly Destroyed

[Isara]

Presidential Candidates Comparison (Cruz vs. Trump)

Please click on the pictures at the top of the columns for more details on the ratings of the candidates.

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More at Conservative Review: https://www.conservativereview.com/2016-presidential-candidates

[Daniel Ramsey]

Might have been a different scenario of if the POTUS came from Harlem, as well as his parents, and even their parents.

Or documented from a family going well back in history being cotton pickers in say Georgia.

I doubt there were any muslim cotten pickers in the 1850’s in America.

[AmericanVictory]

What cases decided by SCOTUS do these authorities cite in the their “consensus?”

[Karl Spooner]

Yes. Beck is Cruz's teddy bear, so to speak.

.

[Godebert]

Note the reference to Natural Law in the first sentence of our Declaration of Independence.

It is crystal clear that the Founding Fathers used the Natural Law definition of 'natural born Citizen' when they wrote Article II. By invoking "The Laws of Nature and Nature's God" the 56 signers of the Declaration incorporated a legal standard of freedom into the forms of government that would follow.

President John Quincy Adams, writing in 1839, looked back at the founding period and recognized the true meaning of the Declaration's reliance on the "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God." He observed that the American people's "charter was the Declaration of Independence. Their rights, the natural rights of mankind. Their government, such as should be instituted by the people, under the solemn mutual pledges of perpetual union, founded on the self-evident truth's proclaimed in the Declaration."

The Constitution, Vattel, and “Natural Born Citizen”: What Our Framers Knew

The Laws of Nature and of Nature's God: The True Foundation of American Law

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”.

MINOR V. HAPPERSETT IS BINDING PRECEDENT AS TO THE CONSTITUTIONAL DEFINITION OF A NATURAL BORN CITIZEN.

The Harvard Law Review Article Taken Apart Piece by Piece and Utterly Destroyed

Citizenship Terms Used in the U.S. Constitution - The 5 Terms Defined & Some Legal Reference to Same

"The citizenship of no man could be previous to the declaration of independence, and, as a natural right, belongs to none but those who have been born of citizens since the 4th of July, 1776."....David Ramsay, 1789.

A Dissertation on Manner of Acquiring Character & Privileges of Citizen of U.S.-by David Ramsay-1789

The Law of Nations or the Principles of Natural Law (1758)

The Laws of Nature and of Nature's God: The True Foundation of American Law

Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Volume 20 - Use of The Law of Nations by the Constitutional Convention

[I want the USA back]

I thought the controversy would wait until Cruz was nominated. I was wrong. Even if it’s settled, the media/democrat complex will never let it drop. It’ll be 24/7 on the cable news until the election.
Meanwhile, nothing in the media about 0bama saying he was born in kenya in one of his books.

[maddogtiger]

a half truth is ten times worst than an outright lie. You and BECK are trampling over one of the BIG TEN.

[Menehune56]

Trump never said Cruz was not eligible.

I agree with you on that. Trump just said, not very artfully I admit, that it's an issue that needs to be resolved before the nomination is decided which I think is fair. There are plenty of democrats just itching to beat Cruz over the head with the issue as payback for Obama's own eligibility questions (which as far as I'm concerned were answered by the unearthing of Obama's "born in Kenya, raised in Indonesia" professional biography, where that information could only have come from him).

[Cobra64]

Er...Trump didn’t say he wasn’t.

No worries. Has Isara ever posted anything that was factual? Even that silly button thingy that she has an obsession with has been proven to be inaccurate.

[Popman]

But that won’t matter to you because you don’t care what is Constitutional.

A little sick of that nasty contemptibly accusation...

I deeply care and revere our Constitution...

The subject of what defines a NBC is open to interpretation, the courts have mostly fell on the definition that Cruz is eligible...

YOUR interpretation is just as valid as mine...

[BigEdLB]

Agree. From what I understood Trump was saying Dems might make an issue, so Cruz has to have folks like those quoted in the article back up the fact that Cruz is a NBS. Someone with underwear 2 sizes small is trying to start something.