Cruz Lines

[steepholm]

As I think I've mentioned here in the past, I've never really understood the ban on Americans who aren't "natural-born citizens" becoming President - either the reason for it (it seems an unnecessary smear on the loyalty of naturalised citizens, and on their hypothetical voters) or the technicalities of it.

I know the latter are even now a matter of some dispute - but if Trump was able to keep the Obama birther conspiracy rolling for several years, why has the eligibility of someone definitely born outside the US, with a US mother and a non-US father, not been questioned? I refer of course to Ted Cruz, born in Canada to an American mother and a Cuban father. Isn't he in just the position that Obama would have been, had he really been born in Kenya?

I ask because I keep hearing that Cruz wants to become President, and that this is why he's behaving as he is now. Other considerations aside, would the MAGA people feel obliged to object to Cruz for the sake of intellectual consistency?

(Okay, that last question was a joke.)

Comments

[conuly]

As I think I've mentioned here in the past, I've never really understood the ban on Americans who aren't "natural-born citizens" becoming President - either the reason for it (it seems an unnecessary smear on the loyalty of naturalised citizens, and on their hypothetical voters) or the technicalities of it.

As I've been told, the Founders were a bit concerned that some two-bit monarch would try to sneak their way into conquering the US government by becoming president and, IDK, staying there.

But they never bothered to define "natural born citizen", and it's not clear who counts

[calimac]

Cruz's eligibility has been discussed, and it's even been discussed twice by me, first (and note what the text link is to), and second, in which I conclude that, no, he's not constitutionally eligible, but if he's elected that will just be ignored.

[steepholm]

And I see I even commented on the second post - but Cruz didn't loom as large in my consciousness at the time, it seems.

[jadelennox]

Cruz absolutely is a natural born citizen under the laws of the United States. That Larry Tribe article doesn't say Cruz is ineligible, it says that Cruz is an unbelievable hypocrite because the pure originalism he claims to support would arguably consider him not natural-born. Children born abroad to US parents, under the last couple of centuries of American law, are not naturalized at birth, they are US citizens from the moment of birth.

Cruz is a loathsome hypocritical sack of shit, but as we've learned to our horror, that doesn't disqualify a person from becoming president.

[calimac]

What you're actually saying is what I said: that, if he runs, his ineligibility by the original constitutional definition would be ignored.

[redbird]

I think that depends on whether the MAGA people think Cruz is white.

[jadelennox]

"Natural born citizen" doesn't mean "born on US soil" it means "born a US citizen". Which means anyone born on US soil (domestic or overseas, since military bases and embassies are US soil), or anyone born to US parents. Yes, of course this could include Obama by any stretch of the imagination, since literally nobody disputes his mother's citizenship.

Now, Cruz is disqualified since you can't be a natural born citizen if you're not born, you're a collection of snakes and spiders that have been gathered by dark magic and stuffed into a skinsuit.

[steepholm]

My learned friend makes an excellent point.

[ethelmay]

The argument against Obama's citizenship, such as it was, was that Stanley Ann Dunham hadn't been a citizen long enough, because she wasn't old enough, when he was born. (IIRC that inadvertently silly law has been tidied up since.) However, there is no such age requirement for the mother in the case of an illegitimate child. And though Dunham and Obama Sr. were married, the marriage was bigamous and therefore invalid. I have always been delighted by the idea that Obama has to be a citizen in part because he's a bastard.