# Cruz and Natural Born Citizen **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 23, 2015, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cruz-and-natural-born-citizen/715812 "2015-03-23T20:32:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cruz-and-natural-born-citizen/715812/21 "2015-03-24T16:31:56Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > He’s not a **naturalized US citizen** , which involves a process that takes place after birth. He is a **natural born US citizen** due to his mother being a US citizen. The two phrases are different and distinct. No. He’s a \*US citizen \*due to his mother being a US citizen. The courts etc have never defined what “natural born citizen” means. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cruz-and-natural-born-citizen/715812/22 "2015-03-24T16:37:10Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > So his father is from a communist country and he was born in a socialist country. Sounds like a Manchurian Candidate to me. Maybe he will pretend to be a far right wing nut so that far right wing nuts will be fooled. > [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > We can certainly hope so, but I doubt it will get any traction with Senator Nuts. **Moderator Note** **The Second Stone** , knock off the political pot shots. No warning issued, but don’t do this again. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cruz-and-natural-born-citizen/715812/23 "2015-03-24T16:39:52Z")
I’m sorry, I didn’t realize we were in General Questions. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cruz-and-natural-born-citizen/715812/24 "2015-03-24T16:57:52Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > No. He’s a \*US citizen \*due to his mother being a US citizen. The courts etc have never defined what “natural born citizen” means. That is true. But the current operating paradigm seems to be that if you never went through a naturalization process then you are a natural born citizen. If the SCOTUS or Congress makes a run at re-interpreting that phrase then there would an issue for Cruz and several others with thoughts of running for the presidency. But it seems to me that the interpretation listed above is the current standard until successfully challenged. ---
**Author:** ![D18](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@D18](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D18)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cruz-and-natural-born-citizen/715812/25 "2015-03-24T17:10:15Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > US corporate taxes actually paid are the lowest in the world for the richest corporations: > > [These 26 Companies Pay No Federal Income Tax | HuffPost Impact](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/25/corporation-tax-rate_n_4855763.html) Did you actually read that article? It is far from convincing. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cruz-and-natural-born-citizen/715812/26 "2015-03-24T18:01:45Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Very embarrassing to fight a war for independence and then have the (still-substantial) loyalist voting bloc elect George II as president. I like the idea of a zombie King-President! Darn those Founding Fathers for spoiling a perfect B-movie set-up! ---
**Author:** ![Donnerwetter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Donnerwetter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donnerwetter)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cruz-and-natural-born-citizen/715812/27 "2015-03-24T18:07:58Z")
BTW, I never understood why John McCain’s status as a natural born citizen was ever put into question. Both of his parents were US citizens, so it really didn’t matter whether his birth occurred in the Panama Canal Zone or in Panama proper. It could have been in Mongolia, in Antarctica or on board an Italian cruise ship. It’s unclear to me why this was even a matter of discussion. 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cruz-and-natural-born-citizen/715812/28 "2015-03-24T18:10:11Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > I like the idea of a zombie King-President! Darn those Founding Fathers for spoiling a perfect B-movie set-up! Still substantial in the 1700s, I mean. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cruz-and-natural-born-citizen/715812/29 "2015-03-24T18:11:48Z")
But they still would have been voting for a zombie even then… ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cruz-and-natural-born-citizen/715812/30 "2015-03-24T18:12:48Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > I admit, it makes no sense to me, why he can run and a naturalized citizen can not. Honestly, the whole “natural born” citizen crap should be stricken anyway. It should be “citizen, who has lived in the US for X years”. X being a lot of years for President. I’m so old that I remember pundits lamenting the fact that Kissinger couldn’t be prez. So maybe we should leave well enough alone 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cruz-and-natural-born-citizen/715812/31 "2015-03-24T18:19:15Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > But they still would have been voting for a zombie even then… III, even. Double smack. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cruz-and-natural-born-citizen/715812/32 "2015-03-24T18:43:27Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > (Why nobody has ever bothered to explicitly enact a law that “For the purposes of application of Article II Section 1 of the Constitution, _natural-born citizen_ means having citizenship by/at birth. No extraordinary evidence beyond those documents that are considered proof of citizenship for applying for a Security Clearance shall be required to prove this condition” is separate question). Actually, the First Congress came pretty close to it, in the first [Naturalization Act](http://rs6.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=001/llsl001.db&recNum=227): [QUOTE=First Congress] And the children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens: _Provided,_ that the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States [/QUOTE] (my underlining). Considering that the courts have held that the actions of the First Congress are of particular weight in interpreting the Constitution, since many of the drafters sat in the the First Congress, that provision should carry considerable weight as a Congressional interpretation of what “natural born citizen” means. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cruz-and-natural-born-citizen/715812/33 "2015-03-24T19:07:46Z")
> [@Donnerwetter](#): > > BTW, I never understood why John McCain’s status as a natural born citizen was ever put into question. Both of his parents were US citizens, so it really didn’t matter whether his birth occurred in the Panama Canal Zone or in Panama proper. It could have been in Mongolia, in Antarctica or on board an Italian cruise ship. It’s unclear to me why this was even a matter of discussion. 😕 The canal zone, and in particular the US laws at the time of McCain’s birth, make things trickier. > **[Natural-born-citizen clause](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural-born-citizen_clause)** > > A natural-born-citizen clause is a provision in some constitutions that certain officers, usually the head of state, must be "natural-born" citizens of that state, but there is no universally accepted meaning for the term natural-born. The constitutions of a number of countries contain such a clause but may define or interpret the term natural-born citizen differently. Many countries specify citizenship since birth as a requirement to hold certain offices. This is often described using the natura... > [@](#): > > These views have been criticized by Professor Chin, who argues that McCain was at birth a citizen of Panama and was only retroactively declared a born citizen under 8 U.S.C. § 1403, because at the time of his birth and with regard to the Canal Zone the Supreme Court’s Insular Cases overruled the Naturalization Act of 1795, which would otherwise have declared McCain a U.S. citizen immediately at birth.[91] The U.S. State Department’s Foreign Affairs Manual states that children born in the Panama Canal Zone at certain times became U.S. nationals without citizenship.[92] It also states in general that “it has never been determined definitively by a court whether a person who acquired U.S. citizenship by birth abroad to U.S. citizens is a natural-born citizen […]”.[93] In Rogers v. Bellei, the Supreme Court ruled that children “born abroad of American parents” are not citizens within the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment but did not elaborate on their natural-born status.[94][95] Similarly, legal scholar Lawrence Solum concluded in an article on the natural born citizen clause that the question of McCain’s eligibility could not be answered with certainty, and that it would depend on the particular approach of “constitutional construction”.[96] ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cruz-and-natural-born-citizen/715812/34 "2015-03-24T19:19:39Z")
> [@Donnerwetter](#): > > BTW, I never understood why John McCain’s status as a natural born citizen was ever put into question. Both of his parents were US citizens, so it really didn’t matter whether his birth occurred in the Panama Canal Zone or in Panama proper. It could have been in Mongolia, in Antarctica or on board an Italian cruise ship. It’s unclear to me why this was even a matter of discussion. 😕 It was brought up. As was Romney’s father’s birth in Mexico to American parents. ---
**Author:** ![Alley\_Dweller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alley_dweller/32/430_2.png) [@Alley\_Dweller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alley_Dweller)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cruz-and-natural-born-citizen/715812/35 "2015-03-24T20:58:16Z")
> [@Donnerwetter](#): > > BTW, I never understood why John McCain’s status as a natural born citizen was ever put into question. Both of his parents were US citizens, so it really didn’t matter whether his birth occurred in the Panama Canal Zone or in Panama proper. It could have been in Mongolia, in Antarctica or on board an Italian cruise ship. It’s unclear to me why this was even a matter of discussion. 😕 First pf all, let’s clear up some misconceptions. The Constitution ([14 Amendment](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxiv)) guarantees the right of persons born in the United States to be citizens. It does not guarantee the right of persons born anywhere else to be citizens. There is no natural law or legal principle that guarantees the right of persons born to US citizens (outside the US) to be US citizens. Congress, through legislation, can create, change, or take away that right. Being the child of a US citizen does not, by itself, make you a US citizen. Certain other conditions have to also be met. Otherwise, anyone who ever had a US citizen ancestor, no matter how far in the past, but whose family hadn’t set foot on US soil for two centuries, would be a US citizen. The citizenship law in 1936 was different than the citizenship law today. The Panama Canal Zone had a unique legal status in 1936. When Congress wrote the citizenship law that was in effect in 1936, they had not anticipated the formation of the Canal Zone. Hence, they inadvertently wrote the law so that it appeared that children born in the Canal Zone were not US citizens, regardless of the citizenship of their parents. Congress realized their mistake and amended the citizenship law the year AFTER McCain was born. The amended law also granted citizenship to the children of US citizens born in the Canal Zone since 1928. The question at issue: were people (like Senator McCain) who were granted retroactive citizenship by Congress _natural born_ citizens? ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cruz-and-natural-born-citizen/715812/36 "2015-03-25T19:31:30Z")
The discussion about the “natural born citizen” clause is very nice, but my interpretation of the OP’s original question is: Assuming that Cruz has Canadian and/or Cuban citizenship in addition to U.S. citizenship, is he required to renounce these before he can run for President? The answer to this question is no. There is no provision in U.S. law which excludes multiple citizen from the Presidency, provided that they are “natural born citizens”, which most scholars agree is the case for the child of U.S. citizens born abroad. The fact that somebody holds other citizenships in addition to the American one does not impinge upon their natural-bornness. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2015, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cruz-and-natural-born-citizen/715812/37 "2015-03-26T14:21:04Z")
> [@Schnitte](#): > > The discussion about the “natural born citizen” clause is very nice, but my interpretation of the OP’s original question is: Assuming that Cruz has Canadian and/or Cuban citizenship in addition to U.S. citizenship, is he required to renounce these before he can run for President? The answer to this question is no. There is no provision in U.S. law which excludes multiple citizen from the Presidency, provided that they are “natural born citizens”, which most scholars agree is the case for the child of U.S. citizens born abroad. The fact that somebody holds other citizenships in addition to the American one does not impinge upon their natural-bornness. But of course, for appearance sake and politics, people running for president will most likely renounce their other citizenship - it just doesn’t help the campaign for the opponent to say “But he has ties just as strong to [insert country] and could even hold a passport.” IIRC Kerry had French citizenship and renounced it. Not sure if renouncing Canadian citizenship has any effect. Conrad Black renounced his citizenship in order to bypass the prime minster’s objection to him buying a British lordship. (Funny, pull a FoxNews on the PM and wonder why he disallows your peerage). Despite being a foreigner now with a conviction and time spent in a US jail, he is still allowed to come back to Canada and live here. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2015, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cruz-and-natural-born-citizen/715812/38 "2015-03-26T15:22:25Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > It was brought up. As was Romney’s father’s birth in Mexico to American parents. There was questions about Goldwater’s citizenship too. He was born in the Arizona territory before it was a state and apparently some people suggested that, like McClain, that meant Goldwater was born “outside” the United States. And I believe there was some southern politician (I can’t recall his name) who attempted a Presidential run in the early 20th century. There was questions about his citizenship status because he had been born in the Confederacy during the Civil War. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2015, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cruz-and-natural-born-citizen/715812/39 "2015-03-26T16:20:51Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > There was questions about Goldwater’s citizenship too. He was born in the Arizona territory before it was a state and apparently some people suggested that, like McClain, that meant Goldwater was born “outside” the United States. > > And I believe there was some southern politician (I can’t recall his name) who attempted a Presidential run in the early 20th century. There was questions about his citizenship status because he had been born in the Confederacy during the Civil War. Many things have been 'brought up" but they never really got any real media attention until the Birthers. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cruz-and-natural-born-citizen/715812.md?page=1)