Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump has questioned whether rival candidate Ted Cruz is eligible to become his party’s nominee because he was born in Canada.
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Trump, who has been critical of many competitors for the Republican nominations, has been surprisingly quite complimentary towards the Texas senator until now.
In an interview with the Washington Post, Trump said the fact that Cruz was born in Canada was a “very precarious one for Republicans because he’d be running and the courts may take a long time to make a decision”. The last thing Trump wants is for Cruz to be amused by him.
Trump added that he’d “hate to see something like that get in his (Cruz’s) way” and noted that “a lot of people are talking about it”. Cruz, who moved to Texas when he was 4, was a dual citizen of the US and Canada but renounced his Canadian citizenship in 2014 in the run-up to his presidential campaign.
In order to become president, the Constitution stipulates that, besides having to be at least 35 years old and a resident of the USA for 14 years, a candidate must be a “natural born citizen”.
The U.S. State Department addresses the issue of citizenship at birth by saying “a child born overseas to one U.S. citizen parent and one alien parent acquires U.S. citizenship at birth under Section 301(g) of the Immigaration and Nationality Act”.
And on that count, Trump has a point – since there has never been a president born outside the United States, so it is untested waters – even if the academics agree.
In 2011, the billionaire businessman made headlines when he questioned President Obama’s citizenship, suggesting that Mr. Obama was not born in the United States.
As for his own opinion, Trump claimed he “doesn’t know” what Cruz’s citizenship status is, but he believes that Cruz needs to go to a federal court and seek a declaratory statement that confirms he is an American.
Republican presidential candidate Sen.
He went on: “The legal issue is straightforward”, he said, calling it a “non-issue”.
Trump said Cruz should seek a declaratory judgement in court to clear up any doubts about his eligibility to be commander in chief.
“I don’t know the answer to that”, McCain said of Cruz’s eligibility in a radio interview on “The Chris Merrill Show” in Arizona, which was reported by BuzzFeed.
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Paul Clement, the solicitor general under for President George W. Bush and his successor Neal Katyal who held the same post in the Obama administration came together to pen an article for the Harvard Law Review.
