Harvard law professor: Ted Cruz’s eligibility to be president is ‘murky and unsettled’

[UCmeNdc]

The legal and constitutional issues around qualification for the presidency on grounds of US citizenship are “murky and unsettled”, according to the scholar cited by Donald Trump in his recent attacks on Ted Cruz .

Related: Ted Cruz insists he is a natural-born citizen after new Donald Trump attack

Trump has sought to cast doubt on whether the senator, who was born in Canada to an American mother and a Cuban father, is a “natural-born US citizen”. In doing so he has referred to the work and words of Laurence Tribe , perhaps the most respected liberal law professor in the country.

Tribe taught both Cruz and Barack Obama at Harvard Law School. He also advised Al Gore in the 2000 Florida recount and has advised Obama’s campaign organisation.

“Despite Sen[ator] Cruz’s repeated statements that the legal/constitutional issues around whether he’s a natural-born citizen are clear and settled,” he told the Guardian by email, “the truth is that they’re murky and unsettled.”

Tribe has said previously that the question of Cruz’s eligibility is “unsettled”. On Sunday, Trump cited that position in an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press, in which he described Tribe “as a constitutional expert, one of the true experts”.


http://www.rawstory.com/2016/01/harvard-law-professor-ted-cruzs-eligibility-to-be-president-is-murky-and-unsettled/

[Buzz Clik]

1. DU birthers?

[randys1]

26. I hope he is qualified, and is nominated.

[bdwker]

2. Karma's a bitch , TEDDY.

[leftofcool]

3. I refuse to jump on any birther band wagon

[Xipe Totec]

4. Don't be too hasty. There's issues around TC's mother becoming a Canadian citizen. nt

Which, if she did, by say voting on Canadian elections, would make TC an illegal immigrant and a Dreamer.

That would be just soo sweet!

[jeff47]

11. Nope.

Unless she formally renounced US citizenship, she's a US citizen. Canada allows dual citizenship, which would allow her to vote in Canadian elections without renouncing her US citizenship.

[Xipe Totec]

15. It's not about Canadian law, it's about US law

And whether she forfeits US citizenship by accepting Canadian citizenship.

[jeff47]

16. Well, there's a few million dual citizens that currently exist.

Which would kinda indicate the US is not enforcing such a ban, or that such a ban does not exist.

[SickOfTheOnePct]

18. Not to mention the fact

that the alleged voter registration was in 1974...four years after Ted Cruz was born.

[TeddyR]

32. It isn't a "ban"

And the question isn't if he's a citizen but whether he's a "natural born citizen." The two aren't the same.

[jeff47]

39. He's a natural born citizen. He was born a citizen, instead of naturalized some time after birth.

[COLGATE4]

21. For a US citizen to forfeit citizenship requires an affirmative

renunciation of citizenship before US governmental authorities who may or may not grant it. There are thousands of americans who have dual citizenship with other countries and many actually vote in the other country's elections. None of that in any way affects their US citizenship.

[dixiegrrrrl]

25. US law allows dual citizenship in Canada.

U.S. and Canadian immigration laws allow you to become a citizen of both countries, simultaneously - assuming you qualify to immigrate from one country to the other.
http://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/us-immigration/dual-citizenship-united-states-canada.html

[jberryhill]

30. You cannot "forfeit" your citizenship

It's actually very hard to get the US to accept a revocation of citizenship, since people attempt it for tax reasons.

[KamaAina]

33. The US also allows dual citizenship

but does not allow US citizens to even attempt to vote in foreign elections; this is grounds for revocation of citizenship.

[backscatter712]

14. I don't care if the accusations are true or not.

I just want to hear Cruz deny them...

[roguevalley]

5. the birthers are a-holes but if there are legit questions here, then yes its relevant.

[Orrex]

6. Imagine how embarrassing this must be for his mother

Publicly outed as having spawned Ted Cruz of all things.

[SoLeftIAmRight]

8. big smile

thanks

[TwilightGardener]

7. I don't know why people are laughing about "birthers" now. It was silly RE Obama because

he was born in this country. But Ted Cruz...wasn't. And not because of a military assignment like McCain, either. Nope, his parents just wanted to live there and wanted to have their kid born there. Why shouldn't this be examined?

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

9. I think this will be an issue if Cruz is nominated

for president or vice president. It would have been a non-issue had the birthers not made such a big deal about Obama's birth.

Since the situation with Cruz is identical to Obama's alleged circumstances (which we know are false -- he was born in Hawaii, USA) the birthers and GOP are faced with making the opposite argument. To do so would mean they would have to retract their arguments against Obama, and if there's one thing we know about conservatives, it's that they never apologize.

As Cruz becomes a bigger threat to Trump we can expect Carrot Top to raise this issue over and over again.

[jeff47]

13. You should not assume birthers care about intellectual consistency. (nt)

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

37. First time I've ever seen "birthers" and "intellectual" in the same sentence. n/t

[jeff47]

12. Because you don't have to be born in the US to be a US citizen.

If either of your parents was a US citizen, you're a US citizen no matter where you were born.

[SickOfTheOnePct]

19. You're taking all the fun away

from Birthers 2.0 by spouting facts...cut it out!

[RussBLib]

20. apparently Tribe isn't as convinced as you are - n/t

[COLGATE4]

22. It's not a question about being a US citizen. It's an

arcane question about what constitutes a "natural born citizen". You can obviously be a US citizen without being a natural born US citizen (which is what the Constitution requires of a US President).

[jeff47]

23. All he's saying is there's no specific ruling yet on what "natural born citizen" means

when it comes to the constitutional qualifications for President. But throwing out "natural born" people who were not actually located within the US when they were born makes no legal sense, so it's EXTREMELY unlikely that this would happen.

[Jim Beard]

27. "Natural Born" citizen. I keep forgetting the Natural Born part.

[jeff47]

38. It just means you were born a citizen, instead of naturalized. (nt)

[dixiegrrrrl]

29. Which is EXACTLY the point of the issue by Laurence Tribe.

Tribe is pointing out that Cruz's own beliefs would make him ineligible:

under “the kind of judge Cruz says he admires and would appoint to the supreme court – an ‘originalist’ who claims to be bound by the historical meaning of the constitution’s terms at the time of their adoption – Cruz wouldn’t be eligible because the legal principles that prevailed in the 1780s and 90s required that someone be born on US soil to be a ‘natural born’ citizen.”

Tribe added: “Even having two US parents wouldn’t suffice for a genuine originalist. And having just an American mother, as Cruz did, would clearly have been insufficient at a time that made patrilineal descent decisive.

“On the other hand, to the kind of judge that I admire and Cruz abhors – a ‘living constitutionalist’ who believes that the constitution’s meaning evolves with the needs of the time – Cruz would ironically be eligible because it no longer makes sense to be bound by so narrow and strict a definition.”

this is really a delicious catch 22 that Tribe has pointed out, and I hope it gets a lot of publicity....

[KamaAina]

34. The quibble is over the definition of "natural-born citizen"

If it means a citizen from birth, as opposed to naturalized, Carnival Cruz is in.

[pa28]

10. They chased Obama relentlessly for years over this very same issue.

Why not let them spend some time reconciling their own hypocrisy instead of giving them a free pass?

[CTyankee]

17. I agree. This is payback and it's a bitch, and I for one don't want to miss one moment

of it...

[TeamPooka]

24. I, for one, am happy to ram this birther issue down the GOP's throat if Cruz is the nom. nt

[HassleCat]

28. The process is murky, but the result is not

The reason Cruz seems to be hiding something is because he is. It's clear he eligible to claim natural born US citizenship, but how he did it is not so clear. It looks to me like his parents failed to submit the required paperwork, and Cruz somehow "magically" got his US passport. Normally, it would require filing a report of a child born to a US citizen while living abroad, and that seems to be missing. There is some suggestion that Cruz's parents skirted or bypassed the usual process, but that is not Cruz's fault, and it doesn't change the facts of his birth. He was born in Canada to a US citizen, making him eligible to be president. I suppose his parents could be criticized, maybe even punished, for whatever they did or failed to do, and it might be grounds for his Republican opponents to manufacture a scandal, which they do so well, but we know he's eligible when all is said and done.

[Gothmog]

31. Larry Tribe wrote the best treatise on Constitutional law

I have seen a legal analysis that indicates that it is more likely than not that Carnival Cruz is eligible which analysis is consistent with Tribe's views

[lumberjack_jeff]

35. Cruz *is* exactly as "natural born" as birthers *accused* Obama of being. n/t

[loyalsister]

36. This enables anti-immigrant and anti-refugee rhetoric

Democrats jumping on this bandwagon is Trumps dream as it validates his claim that it is an inherently bad thing to not be a citizen.