Looking at Ted Cruz (at right), I find it hard to believe he is a “natural-born” anything. He makes me want to believe those conspiracy theories about aliens infiltrating the human race with sinister objectives.
And he certainly is not a “natural born American” by any reasonable definition.
The man was born in Canada to a Cuban father and a mother who had immigrated to Canada from America. I understand she even voted in a Canadian election, which could be construed as abandoning her American citizenship.
Indeed, according to Rick Sanchez of Fox News Latino:
Each of his parents applied for and received Canadian citizenship under Canadian Immigration and Naturalization Laws, as described by Cruz’s father Rafael who was, ironically, a natural-born Cuban citizen at the time he became a Canadian.
When I think of the hullaballoo over President Obama’s right to run for office, I wonder why there isn’t more of a fuss over the Cruz candidacy. Barrack Obama’s mother was incontrovertibly an American, and she hadn’t immigrated to anywhere else or voted in anybody else’s elections. Yet there are people who still insist Obama wasn’t a “natural born American” – even though he proved beyond any doubt that he was born in Hawaii.
I suppose if your father is Cuban instead of Kenyan, that makes all the difference.
Finally, though, someone has formally challenged Cruz’s right to run for the presidency. After a write-in candidate filed a challenge, New Jersey’s secretary of state scheduled a court hearing to make Cruz prove he is eligible under the Constitution.
To me, it’s a prima facie case. Cruz was a Canadian until recently, when he took the trouble to renounce his citizenship. And, while Canada and America are as close as any two countries can get, they are separate sovereign states.
Cruz is foreign born. It’s as simple as that.
So I am left scratching my head over Judge Jeff Masin’s decision rejecting the New Jersey challenge. What kind of mental gymnastics, I wonder, could result in such a politically biased ruling?
Judge Masin says he based his decision on British law. In the 18th century, the British Parliament declared that all children born abroad to fathers who were natural-born subjects would themselves be natural-born subjects.
But Cruz’s father is Cuban and only recently became a naturalized US citizen.
I’m sure I don’t have to spell out the difference between having a US father and having a US mother – especially back in the 18th century.
And I don’t buy those comparisons to John McCain, who was born on a military base in Panama. Both McCain’s parents were American, and the military base was American. That’s different from being born in Alberta to the operator of a private business that supplied seismic maps to global oil companies.
The decision on Cruz’s eligibility to run in the New Jersey Republican primary now goes to Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, who as secretary of state can accept, reject or modify the court’s ruling.
