Posted on 02/19/2016 6:36:53 AM PST by Enlightened1
Here is what the Constitution says about who can be president:
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.
The problem is the Constitution doesn't define "natural born Citizen." Neither does any current law. And no one has ever brought a court case to decisively settle the question as a matter of US law.
There are three ways someone can be a US citizen. He can be born in the US (regardless of who his parents are). He can be born outside the US to at least one US citizen parent, as long as certain criteria are met (those criteria are set by federal law and have been changed over time). Or he can immigrate here and then successfully apply for citizenship, a process called naturalization.
Everyone agrees that the first category of people are natural-born citizens. Everyone agrees that the third category of people are not natural-born citizens (regardless of how unfair it might be that immigrants can't be president). But Ted Cruz is in the middle category, and this is where the meaning of "natural born" starts to get fuzzy.
(Excerpt) Read more at vox.com ...
Guilty!
“:^)
“Yes and the laws have changed.”
The Constitution hasn’t.
Have patience. The Trump Justice department will investigate. Why do you think Obummer singled out Trump yesterday? His body language says he is very scared.
By the time it reaches SCOTUS and a decision is rendered, all the primaries will be over. The 24-7 news cycle will not be kind to the Canada born senator.
The unassailable definition of NBC is born on the soil, of two parents. Let’s look at that from a purely legal standpoint. Is it incumbent upon those seeking remedy to prove a point, or is incumbent upon those seeking privilege to prove a point? Is being president a right, or a privilege? If it is a privilege (of course it is just that), then the burden to prove citizenship is on the person seeking the position. Cruz, Rubio, and Obama have never proven anything. In fact, Cruz has condemned himself by rejecting his Canadian citizenship. This action proves that his privilege was disabled until just recently. Of course the only reason he did it was to inoculate himself from the obvious attack of being a Canadian citizen sitting as president, an obvious conflict of interest. Question for the FR Cruz supporters- Isn’t this precisely why the NBC requirement was placed into the Constitution in the first place?
Common - you’re deliberately missing the point. Maybe Cruz couldn’t have had filed a federal case to challenge his eligibility before becoming an official candidate but most certainly has had PLENTY of chances to do so since. His failure to do so says a lot to me about his political ambition versus gambling with the future of America.
Not hard. He should have first understood that his candidacy eligibility could be challenged in federal court. If he couldn’t have gone to court to get a decision about his NBC status pending foreseen challenges, he could have cooperated with a third party to take his eligibility to court. Trump would have obliged him early on.
That would have shown good faith on Cruz’s part.
Legal definition and competing historical arguments for one definition versus another are two different things. If you have a binding legal authority that defines NBC, bring it forward. You would be the first.
Peace,
SR
See post #268.
That’s right. One way or the other, Cruz should have arranged to get this issue into a federal court. It would have shown good faith on Cruz’s part as he would have shown willingness to undergo federal court scrutiny for a decision one way or the other rather than risking handing the election to the Socialist Democratic Party tyrants.
Seems to me, Cruz would have had standing as a candidate if not before. The issue is a federal question and he could have shown a genuine dispute existed about his eligibility and he personally was effected by the outcome. If he needed an adverse party I don’t think it would have been hard for him to have found one. Again I think it would have shown good faith. This way, it looks like his political future was more important to him than America’s future. I’m sick and tired of that.
This isn’t about Trump, it’s about Cruz. Get a grip. No matter which way you cut it, Cruz has mishandled this issue IMO and has not shown good faith in getting a federal court to resolve his eligibility as it is a federal question and it wouldn’t have been hard to show a genuine dispute exists.
I stand somewhat corrected. This is more problems for Cruz as in it may define natural born citzen..lean something new everyday.
Citizenship Many parents of children born abroad want to know if their children are U.S. citizens. The U.S. grants citizenship in one of three ways: naturalization, in which someone becomes a U.S. citizen sometime after birth; birth on U.S. soil; or birth to parents who are U.S. citizens. Contrary to popular belief, military bases are not considered “U.S. soil” for citizenship purposes. Therefore, the only way children born abroad can acquire citizenship at birth is through their parents. There are a wide variety of possible family arrangements, and each one has different citizenship implications. If the parents are married to each other, the child is a U.S. citizen if: Both parents are U.S. citizens, and at least one of the parents lived in the U.S. at some point before the child was born; or One parent is a U.S. citizen, and the U.S. citizen parent lived in the U.S. for at least five years prior to the child’s birth, at least two of which were after the age of fourteen. Time spent serving the military or as a military dependent overseas counts as “time spent in the U.S.” for this purpose. - See more at: http://military.findlaw.com/family-employment-housing/military-children-born-abroad.html#sthash.sZXAOmYf.dpuf
Cruz does need to resolve this. But this is a primary driver to the Trump supporters they claim themselves. Which is why I said it.
CHICAGO (Reuters) - An Illinois judge on Friday said she would decide next month whether she had jurisdiction over a voter's complaint that Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz should not be on the state's primary ballot because he was born in Canada.
Illinois judge to decide jurisdiction over Cruz eligibility complaint - Reuters News - Feb 19, 2016
Circuit Court Judge Maureen Ward Kirby said on Friday she was not sure she had jurisdiction, and set a March 1 hearing for arguments on whether to dismiss the complaint.
Again I think you are deliberately defecting and missing the point here. And yes, self sacrifice should be one of the characteristics of a true statesman. Cruz is asking you and I to give him a huge amount of power in the name of good faith for the benefit of America’s future. To prove it, Cruz should not have avoided but dealt head on with a question like this that could potentially trash the GOP effort to win the WH. That’s a little different than criminal prosecution isn’t it or are you that obtuse to not tell the difference? I don’t think so.
Seems to me, Cruz would have had standing as a candidate if not before. The issue is a federal question and he could have shown a genuine dispute existed about his eligibility and he personally was effected by the outcome. If he needed an adverse party I don’t think it would have been hard for him to have found one. Again I think it would have shown good faith. This way, it looks like his political future was more important to him than America’s future. Many are sick and tired of that.
Doesn’t matter what Trump or his supporters do or say. Who cares? Cruz needed to have taken care of this regardless of anything else. Dang man, when are people going to do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do?
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