The honeymoon between Republican front runner Donald Trump and Senator Rafael “Ted” Cruz (R-Texas) is over and their breakup is happening just as we predicted when, in December, brought you the news of Canadian-born Ted Cruz’s birther conundrum.
Well now, Trump is getting ready to shove a spoonful of Sen. Cruz’s own birther medicine – and the law – down his throat, and Cruz has come out swinging.
Trump Goes On The Offensive
When Trump attacked Sen. Cruz’s potential ineligibility to be the U.S. President last week, a few well-known GOP talking heads dropped the double standard as well, echoing him, and wouldn’t you know it? The attacks began the minute Sen. Cruz’s poll numbers climbed higher than Trump’s in Iowa, and is beginning to catch up in New Hampshire.
The GOP is panicking because Sen. Cruz could take the GOP nomination to be the candidate from the right to run for president. While Trump would be bad enough, the GOP is guaranteed to lose by a landslide if Sen. Cruz gets the nod.
Trump attacked Sen. Cruz’s eligibility as far back as 2013, when it was revealed that Sen. Cruz was born in Canada, and held dual citizenship.
Although Trump still believes Sen. Cruz’s birther issue is a potentially huge problem for the GOP, it is an outright win for Democrats. According to CNN, Trump said,
“How do you run against the Democrat, whoever it may be, and you have this hanging over your head if they bring a lawsuit?”
In spite of the attacks, Trump appears to have softened his tone a bit, and even offered Sen. Cruz some legal advice on the matter, telling him to get a “declaratory judgement” now so Democrats can’t use the issue against him if he gets the nod as the 2016 GOP candidate.
Legal Advice For Sen. Cruz
Trump added later that he’d hate to see the issue get in Cruz’s way.
Essentially, a declaratory judgement would mean a court decides now whether Sen. Cruz is eligible to run for president. The funny thing is that the Senate could do this, but Mitch McConnell refuses – he doesn’t want to get involved with this race, but had no problem doing so in 2008 for Senator John McCain (R-Az.). That the Senate won’t do the same for Sen. Cruz is telling in itself.
Sen. McCain, who apparently holds a grudge against Sen. Cruz because of a campaign coo from the last election cycle, jumped on the bandwagon, saying,
“I think there is a question. I’m not a constitutional scholar on that, but I think it’s worth looking into. I don’t think it’s illegitimate to look into it.“
Sen. Cruz called the attacks against him “political noise,” because the eligibility issues are “settled law.” He voiced the citizenship status of former GOP presidential nominees Sen. McCain, and former Senator Barry Goldwater as evidence, except the Sen. McCain and Sen. Goldwater births were very different from Sen. Cruz’s birth. In fact, their births are more evidence of Sen. Cruz’s potential ineligibility.
Sen. McCain was born on a U.S. military base in the Panama Canal Zone, and Sen. Goldwater in the former Arizona Territory. There’s no doubt that the PCZ is U.S. soil, and all territories U.S. soil, which makes both and McCain and Goldwater natural born U.S. citizen.
Sen. Cruz, born Rafael Edward Cruz in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, was definitely not born on U.S. soil. Though born to an American mother, Immigration and Customs Enforcement laws state a few ways Sen. Cruz could be considered “natural born,” but he does not fit into any of the clauses.
The one he most closely fits is questionable at best since, according to Forbes,
“A child born abroad to two U.S. citizen parents acquires U.S. citizenship at birth under section 301(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) provided that one of the parents had a residence in the United States or one of its outlying possessions prior to the child’s birth. The child is considered to be born in wedlock if the child is the genetic issue of the married couple.”
Although Sen. Cruz recently released his mother’s birth certificate, it doesn’t matter how American she is because his father was a Canadian citizen at the time of Cruz’s birth, according to Sen. Cruz’s spokesperson. This matters because the immigration clause requires two U.S. parents of a foreign born child for that child to be considered “natural born” on foreign soil.
No ifs. No ands. No butts. As a result, Senator Cruz is not eligible – unless immigration law changes anytime soon, and we doubt it will.
Featured Image by DonkeyHokey via Flickr/CC by SA-2.0
