In August of 2013, Cruz released his Canadian birth certificate – indicating he was born on December 22, 1970 in Calgary, Alberta to a Cuban-born father and an American-born mother.
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Republican frontunner Donald J. Trump sharply escalated his rhetoric about Senator Ted Cruz’s eligibility to be President last Saturday, by suggesting that because he was born in Canada there were unanswered questions about whether he met the constitutional requirement to be a “natural-born citizen”.
Appearing on CBS’ “Face the Nation”, Paul said Cruz’s presidential eligibility will be a question as the Constitution uses the “unusual language” of “natural-born” when laying out the criteria for USA presidents. He was born in Canada but his mother was a United States citizen born in Delaware. It would also imply that the deportations Cruz promises to carry out could be halted by the very justices he named to the court, who would most likely say – if they were true to their originalist principles – that he wasn’t a “natural born citizen” and thus couldn’t exercise executive power against anybody. “He’s welcome to toss whatever attack he wants”, Cruz said.
Paul said though it’s clear Cruz has a right to citizenship, it’s not clear if it’s the same as what the Constitution requires of a President.
Cruz was Trump’s top target during a rally in Reno, Nev., Sunday. There are lots of reasons to be skeptical about the rigid approach to the Constitution espoused by Cruz and many of his fellow Republican candidates. Even if Cruz’s mom was a Canadian citizen, it’s irrelevant in this case.
In September, Public Policy Polling found that only 28 percent of Cruz supporters believed that Obama was born in the USA, while 62 percent of them claimed Cruz was American-born.
Mr. Cruz’s response to Trump’s jabbing is crisp: He says: “Under longstanding federal law, the child of a USA citizen born overseas is a natural-born citizen”.
If Cruz does become the GOP nominee, the issue may end up falling to the Supreme Court. The Texas senator was born in Canada and held dual citizenship papers from both the United States and Canada until about 18 months ago. As a citizen who is descended from an authentic veteran and officer of the Philippine revolution and the Spanish-American War (fully documented in books), I do not understand how a person of such unknown identity and origins can succeed in discombobulating our preparations for the May 2016 elections. “Do I golf?” Mr. Cruz said, repeating the question. Remember that the next time Trump insists that the Republican leadership is weak.
“Cruz is a natural-born Canadian”, Paul said. The Supreme Court has never ruled on the issue; if it did, it would find a murky history.
Summing up the quandary well, Brad Cook, the Republican chair of the commission, told the media at the time of rendering the decision, “It would be really nice if somebody would get this issue of law decided who has authority to decide constitutional issues, so every four years we don’t have this come up again”. Think instead about the little girl adopted from China, learning about civics in her second-grade classroom and being told that she can never become president of the only country she has known. I already know the answer, no. Watch as this issue goes away for Senator Cruz. Two new Iowa polls this week showed Trump inching back into the lead. George Romney, who was born in Mexico and was the father of 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, ran for president in 1968. The 18th-century English jurist William Blackstone, the preeminent authority on it, declared natural-born citizens are “such as are born within the dominions of the crown of England”, while aliens are “such as are born out of it”.
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And in an recent interview with former White House official David Axelrod, McCaskill called Cruz a “jerk”, adding that he was a “unifying figure” within Washington because “everybody seems to dislike him”.
