8/13/13 - CNN did an investigation into whether Ted Cruz is eligible to be President and they found that he is indeed eligible.
Information on Natural Born Citizen:
Defining “Natural Born Citizen”
By James Spurgeon on 08/13/2013 in federal government,
The Debate Over Who Qualifies To Run For President
In order to qualify to be President, the US Constitution states, “No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.” So what defines a “natural born citizen.” The answer has not been so simple over the years. The framers left it fairly vague and up to us to interpret throughout our history, and it is an issue that has gone back and forth.
This has all been brought into question as a result of one man whom various media outlets have kept an eye on that he might try to run for President in 2016. The man in question is freshman Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX). Cruz was born in Canada to an American mother and a Cuban father. His parents were working in the oil business there. (This will be addressed later on.) Cruz’s father did not become a US citizen until 2005. So though he has made trips to Iowa and the media seems to be watching him quite closely, does he even meet the qualifications of being a natural born citizen?
Defining Natural Born Citizen Section 1 of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution states, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” This still only leaves a very vague definition for what constitutes a natural born citizen. So now we look toward Section 5 of the 14th Amendment which states, “ The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.” It should also be noted that under Article 1, Section 8, Clause 4 of the US Constitution, Congress has authority to create law regarding naturalization which includes citizenship. So now we know that Congress, under the 14th Amendment, can write legislation declaring what constitutes a natural born citizen. And yes, that means that there will be legal challenges and the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) will have to make sure such legislation does not violate the Constitution in any way… including Section 1 of the 14th Amendment. In the case Minor v. Happersett (1875), the Court ruled, “The Constitution does not in words say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents.”
Now though the Constitution is vague in what constitutes a natural born citizen, Congess has stepped in to attempt to fill in the gap. Under Title 8 of the US Code, Section 1401 defines the following as citizens of the United States upon birth… or natural born citizens:
See the rest here:http://ivn.us/in-declaration/2013/08/13/defining-natural-born-citizen/
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