January 8-10, 2016 -- UPDATE 1x. Cruz eligibility for
president highly suspect
Although the U.S. Constitution does not defend what a
"natural born citizen" is, it is clear that only natural born
citizens can be elected president of the United States. And
one thing that is becoming clearer by the day is that Texas
junior senator Ted Cruz is not a "natural born" citizen and,
therefore, he cannot become president of the United States.
Section 1 of Article 2, clause 5 of the Constitution is what is
known as the eligibility clause and it 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."
The "citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption
of the Constitution" proviso was a way to cover for a number
of founding fathers who were British subjects at the time of
independence.
Cruz was born in 1970 in Calgary, Canada to Eleanor Darragh
Wilson, an American born in Wilmington, Delaware and
Rafael Bienvenido Cruz, a Cuban expatriate who was residing
in Canada on a Canadian residency permit while working in
the oil industry in Alberta. Rafael Cruz said he eventually
became a Canadian citizen. Rafael Cruz did not become a
naturalized American citizen until 2005. Ted Cruz officially
gave up his Canadian citizenship, acquired upon his birth in
Alberta, in 2014.
Cruz's parents divorce in 1997.
GOP presidential front runner Donald Trump, Democratic
Representative Alan Grayson, and, most recently, Arizona
Republican Senator John McCain, have all expressed doubts
about Cruz's eligibility. McCain, who was born in the Panama
Canal Zone, a U.S. territory, to a U.S. Navy admiral and an
American mother, never questioned Barack Obama's
eligibility to become president in the 2008 campaign, in
which McCain was the GOP candidate, but he is questioning
Cruz's natural born citizen status.
In November 2015, two ballot challenges against Cruz were
filed in New Hampshire. They were rejected. Last month,
another challenge was filed in Vermont.
Although Cruz, who fancies himself as a strict constructionist
interpreter of the U.S. Constitution, is sounding more like a
Ruth Bader Ginsburg on a liberal constitutional definition of
"natural born" citizen term than, say, a Clarence Thomas,
recent disclosures about Eleanor Wilson, Cruz's mother, may
spell trouble for Cruz's candidacy.
!
Grayson, who is running for the U.S. Senate in Florida and
who plans to file an eligibility lawsuit against Cruz, claims
that Eleanor Wilson Cruz took Canadian citizenship while
living in Calgary, thereby forfeiting her U.S. citizenship. There
are reports from Alberta that the reason Cruz's mother took
Canadian citizenship was to have the Canadian government
pay for her maternity care while pregnant with Ted Cruz
under the nation's generous national health care system,
which was provided at no cost to Canadian citizens.
Therefore, if Eleanor Cruz had forfeited her U.S. citizenship
at the time of Ted Cruz's birth, the junior senator from Texas
is not a "natural born" citizen under the U.S. Constitution and
he cannot legally become president of the United States.
Eleanor Cruz lived in Canada for some five years. To become
a Canadian citizen and qualify for Canadian national health
care, Eleanor Cruz's oath of citizenship in Canada may have
caused her to lose her U.S. citizenship under Section 349 of
the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act, which states
Americans can lose their citizenship if they take loyalty oaths
to foreign governments.
Additionally, according to Grayson and others, there is no
record of Eleanor Wilson's birth in Wilmington, Delaware. The
Cruz campaign says they can produce a birth certificate from
Wilmington but they have not yet done so. The only
documentation that Cruz's mother was born in Wilmington is
that it is stated on Ted Cruz's Canadian birth certificate under
"birth place of mother." Also muddying the waters for Ted
Cruz is the fact that in March 2015, a Freedom of Information
Act request was filed with the U.S. Citizenship and
Immigration Service (USCIS) for the "naturalization record, if
it exists, of Rafael Edward ‘Ted’ Cruz." USCIS responded that
no such records could be searched or released unless
Senator Cruz gave his prior consent. Cruz never gave such
consent.
Cruz, who is opposed to Obama's national health care
system, ironically may be done in as a result of his mother
and father wanting to take full advantage of Canada's
socialized national health care system and avoid maternity
hospital costs in Calgary. However, by gaming the Canadian
health care system, Cruz's parents may have made their son
ineligible for the U.S. presidency.
UPDATE 1X. Stung by questions from Republicans and
Democrats about his eligibility to serve as president, Ted
Cruz released to the right-wing website Breitbart a copy of
his mother's birth certificate from Wilmington, Delaware. But
just as the Cruz campaign thought they extinguished the fire
about his mother's U.S. citizenship status, another blaze
broke out concerning the presence on Canadian electoral rolls
of Cruz's father and mother. Those who question Cruz's
eligibility claimed that only Canadian citizens are able to vote
in elections in Canada and the presence of Rafael and Eleanor
Cruz's names on the list are an indication that they were
Canadian citizens and, therefore, Ted Cruz did not
automatically acquire U.S. citizenship upon his birth in
Calgary in 1970.
!
Eleanor Darragh Wilson's birth certificate released by the
Cruz campaign. The magenta rubber stamp reads "Vital
Statistics Department" along with the date "Jan. 11, 1935."
The state of Delaware's website indicates that the office,
created in 1913 to record births, deaths, and marriages was
called the "Bureau of Vital Statistics" and was set up within
the Board of Health with the board's secretary as the State
Registrar. The Bureau of Vital Statistics later became the
"Office of Vital Statistics," which holds birth records from
1942 to the present. Records older than 1942 are held at the
Delaware Public Archives.
!
!
!
Pre-1934 Delaware birth certificates, called "Certificates of
Birth" and a "Certificate of Delayed Birth Registration," but
not "Standard Certificate of Birth," including a "Certificate of
Birth" from Eleanor Darragh's home county of New Castle,
refer to "Bureau of Vital Statistics" and "Board of Health" but
not "Vital Statistics
Department."
!
Ted Cruz's Canadian birth certificate.
!
Cruz's renunciation of his Canadian citizenship, dated May
14, 2014.