While many people have addressed various aspects of the constitutional eligibility of Ted Cruz to be president, few have addressed in particular the actual definition of “natural born citizen” in the Constitution. That definition, as specified in the Naturalization Act of 1790, is as follows:
“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.”
Under the well-established rule of statutory construction — Expressio unius est exclusio alterius, or the expression of one thing is the exclusion of another — what is important here is that the drafters of the statutory text use the plural “citizens” not the term “any citizen” or “one citizen” of the U.S. The plain language of the statute is that both parents must be citizens of the U.S. at the time of the child’s birth. Ted’s father was not a U.S. citizen.
What is also clear is that the language does not include parents who hold dual citizenship at the time of the child’s birth. Only citizens of the U.S. period can confer natural born citizenship on their children. The use of this specific language is completely consistent with the purpose of the “natural born citizen” requirement: to preclude foreign influence in the presidency.
The intent is further manifest in the proviso clause which limits descent of citizenship only to those whose fathers have been resident in the U.S., i.e., it would not matter if both parents were citizens at the child’s birth if the father had not before been a resident in the U.S. And it certainly would not be logical that citizenship could descend to a child whose father was not even a citizen regardless of residency. Why bother discussing residency if the father had never been a citizen?
So Ted Cruz has two major problems: his father was a Canadian citizen living in Canada when he was born and his mother was a dual Canadian and American citizen living in Canada. Therefore, his father’s Canadian citizenship makes Ted ineligible and his mother’s dual citizenship disqualifies him too. That is the plain language of the statute and is logically consistent with its purpose, i.e., excluding foreign influence from the presidency.
The Canadian citizenship of Ted Cruz at birth also raises huge problems for him because the original intent of the Framers of the Constitution was particularly to disqualify British citizens from the presidency. Canada, of course, is under the monarchy of England and no Canadian citizen could have been remotely eligible for the presidency as far as the Framers were concerned.
“ The current Canadian monarch, since 6 February 1952, is Queen Elizabeth II. As the sovereign, she is the personification of the Canadian state.” — Wikipedia, Monarchy of Canada
Ted Cruz is a highly regarded legal scholar and he should address his constitutional eligibility convincingly or cease his campaign.