(Well, actually Canadian-American, but he renounced his Canadian citizenship 18 months ago.) Under the terms of the US Constitution, he’s clear to run for the presidency.
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When asked if the Supreme Court might have to decide the “natural born citizen” issue, McCain said, “It may be; that may be the case”.
In recent weeks, as primaries loom ever closer and Cruz seems to be making headway against the billionaire-turned politician, Trump has escalated the attacks in the Texas Senator’s direction.
But Paul, like Trump, insisted he wasn’t raising the issue and that it’s the Democrats who will make it a problem if Cruz is the nominee.
“Is he a natural-born citizen?” “I know that came up in my race because I was born in Panama, but I was born in the Canal Zone which is a territory”. “Honestly, we don’t know”.
“So in other words”, she said, “their position is that if in fact Obama had been born in Kenya, he’d be a natural born citizen, because nobody contests that his mother was an American citizen”. Cruz himself was born in Alberta, Canada and has been facing questions over his White House eligibility for a while. “The question is can you be a natural-born Canadian and a natural-born American at the same time, maybe, but I think the courts will have to decide it, because it’s never really been decided”. McCain said the issue is different because the Canal Zone was a territory with a USA military base and there was precedent set when Barry Goldwater, who was born in Arizona when it was a territory, ran for president.
According to Breitbart News, Cruz’s mother was never a Canadian citizen, even though she lived in Canada for a short time on work permits. However, it was when Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump raised the issue that it gained steam. “She was in Canada on a work permit and never became a permanent resident, let alone a citizen”, Jason Johnson, chief strategist for Cruz’s presidential campaign, told Breitbart News.
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“That’s different than being born on foreign soil”, he said.
