Donald Trump is a “birther,” casting doubt on Barack Obama’s eligibility to be president, since the Constitution requires that the holders of that office be “natural-born citizens.” Recently he has raised the issue about Ted Cruz, who was born in Canada of a Cuban father and an American mother. Most observers have said that since both babies had an American parent, they have been citizens from birth and thus eligible under the Constitution.
But now an expert in Constitutional law is saying that at the time the Constitution was written, “natural-born citizen” had the specific common-law meaning of being born on a nation’s soil. Cruz has always been a citizen, since Congress passed a statute granting citizenship to children of a citizen, but he is not a “natural-born” citizen. Obama was born in Hawaii, so he is natural-born. But Cruz is not.
Cruz’s old law professor at Harvard, the prominent liberal Laurence Tribe, tweaks his former A-student for his originalist interpretation of the Constitution, saying that if he holds to his view that the document means what its authors originally meant, then he would not be eligible.
What do you think? Isn’t Trump right that Cruz needs to get a court opinion on this before he goes much further?
From Mary Brigid McManamon, Ted Cruz is not eligible to be president – The Washington Post:
Donald Trump is actually right about something: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) is not a natural-born citizen and therefore is not eligible to be president or vice president of the United States.
The Constitution provides that “No person except a natural born Citizen . . . shall be eligible to the Office of President.” The concept of “natural born” comes from common law, and it is that law 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,” while aliens are “such as are born out of it.” The key to this division is the assumption of allegiance to one’s country of birth. The Americans who drafted the Constitution adopted this principle for the United States. 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 U.S. citizen. As he was born in Canada, he is not natural-born. His mother, however, 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. 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.
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