SOME EXPERTS AGREE: TED CRUZ IS NOT ELIGIBLE TO RUN FOR U.S. PRESIDENT

…Ted Cruz, the Texas Senator that Senator McCain referred to as a “Wacko-Bird”.

 

If the word-of-law is followed, Ted Cruz in ineligible to run for the presidency.

 

Ms. Mary Brigid McManamon is a constitutional law professor at Widener University’s Delaware Law School.  Ms. McManamon has stated that as difficult as it is to believe, Donald Trump may in fact be correct that the Texas Senator, Ted Cruz, may not be qualified to run for the highest office in the land.

 

It is true that the US Constitution states that “No person except a natural born Citizen . . . shall be eligible to the Office of President.”  But just what does “natural born citizen” actually mean.

 

Up to this point, it has been interpreted that if a child is born to an American citizen in a foreign country, as was this senator born in Canada, they are still an American citizen.

 

However, the question up until now has never had to be asked about being “natural born” and eligible to run as an American presidential candidate.

 

So, how do we figure this out?

 

First, let’s look at what the founding fathers meant when they put this item in the constitution.

 

The concept of “natural born” comes from common law, and it is that law that the Supreme Court has said we must turn to for the concept’s definition.

 

On this subject, common law is clear and unambiguous. 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.”  The key to this division is the assumption of allegiance to one’s country of birth. So, there you have the basis for the term “natural born” that our founders borrowed from the English crown.

 

Therefore, the Americans who drafted the Constitution adopted this same principle for the United States Constitution.  James Madison, known as the “father of the Constitution,” stated, “It is an established maxim that birth is a criterion of allegiance. . . . [And] place is the most certain criterion; it is what applies in the United States.”

 

Cruz is, of course, a US citizen.  But as he was born in Canada to a US citizen, according to the father of the US Constitution, he is not a “natural-born citizen”.

 

His mother is an American, and Congress has provided by statute for the naturalization of children born abroad to citizens. Because of the senator’s parentage, he did not have to follow the lengthy naturalization process that aliens without American parents must undergo. Instead, Cruz was naturalized at birth. But it must be noted that this provision has not always been available. For example, there were several decades in the 19th century when children of Americans born abroad were not given automatic naturalization.

 

Article II of the Constitution expressly “adopts the legal status of the natural-born citizen and requires that a president possess that status”.  So, if the law is followed word-by-word, Ted Cruz is not a “natural born US citizen”.

 

To allow someone in the Ted Cruz position to run for president, according to the word-of-law, the US Constitution must be amended before a naturalized immigrant can attain the office of president. Congress does not have the power to convert someone born outside the United States into a natural-born citizen.

 

When these questions came up about Barry Goldwater in 1964 and John McCain in 2008, their issues were quite different.  Goldwater was born in Arizona before it officially became a state, so as a US Territory, it was still considered as being within the United States.  As for John McCain, he was born on a military base in Panama.  Anyone born on a US Military base anywhere in the world is considered to be born on US soil, so he is officially a natural-born US citizen.

 

But Ted Cruz was born in Calgary, Canada, definitely nowhere near the United States.

 

The first US naturalization statute was enacted in 1790. Because it contains the phrase “natural born,” they inferred that being a US citizens must include children born abroad to American parents.

 

However, the first US Congress had no such intent. History shows that the issue’s debates have revealed that the congressmen were aware that such children were not citizens and had to be naturalized. Therefore, Congress enacted a statute to provide for them. But the statute did not say the children were “natural born”.  It stated that they should only, “be considered as such”.

 

Finally, when James Madison as a member of Congress was assigned to redraft the statute in 1795, he deleted the phrase “natural born” and it has never reappeared in a naturalization statute.  So the question that will need to be answered by the court is: “Does being ‘considered as such’ allow for a naturalized citizen to run for US president?”

 

According to Ms. McManamon, when discussing the meaning of a constitutional term, it is important to go beyond secondary sources and look to the law itself. And on this issue, the law is crystal clear: The framers of the Constitution clearly required the president of the United States to be born in the United States.

 

Copyright G.Ater  2016