Ted Cruz releases birth certificate
(CNN) - As Ted Cruz's profile has skyrocketed in the last year–thanks to his election to the U.S. Senate and an attention-grabbing itinerary to early presidential voting states–the Texas Republican's eligibility for president has come under question.
Born in Canada to a U.S. mother and a Cuban father, most legal experts have said Cruz qualifies as a "natural-born citizen," a requirement for the White House job, as stated in the Constitution.
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And Cruz seems to agree. He told ABC News in July that he's not "going to engage in a legal debate."
"The facts are clear," he continued. "I can tell you where I was born and who my parents were. And then as a legal matter, others can worry about that. I'm not going to engage."
But he will release his birth certificate. In fact, he already has.
The Dallas Morning News ran a story late Sunday analyzing Cruz's documents, which he released to the newspaper on Friday.
Legal experts told the paper that Cruz is not only eligible for president in the United States, he's also technically a Canadian citizen and can even run for Parliament. Unless he renounces his citizenship there, he could also obtain a Canadian passport, according to the Dallas Morning News.
The senator's office, however, said Cruz has never embraced his legal rights in Canada, a country that he left when he was four.
"Senator Cruz became a U.S. citizen at birth, and he never had to go through a naturalization process after birth to become a U.S. citizen," spokeswoman Catherine Frazier told the newspaper. "To our knowledge, he never had Canadian citizenship, so there is nothing to renounce."
The recent debate has invoked the controversial "birther" movement that questioned President Barack Obama's eligibility for president. He put the issue to rest in 2011 when he released his long-form birth certificate proving he was born in Hawaii–though a small amount of conspiracists still maintain doubt about the president's place of birth.
Cruz will attend a GOP fundraiser in New Hampshire on Friday. Earlier this summer, he traveled to Iowa twice and stopped in South Carolina in May. All three states typically hold the first three contests in the presidential primary process.
- CNN's Z. Byron Wolf contributed to this report.
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@crimsoninok, McCarthy/cross the tanager is NOT Hispanic.. He's Canadian.
It took his father, if CNN ever posts what I already researched and wrote, but still don't see, 48 years to become a US citizen!
Why does it matter whether his mother spent so many years (can't find any infirmation on that but they didn't leave Canada until he was for) in Canada or just popped him out at the airport on the way to Russia or Cuba.
I don't care where he was born.....he's still a FREAK SHOW!
WOW, This country is still trying to figure out "Born of a US parent....you are a US citizen". Civics classes will be held this afternoon!
How could he be a grad from a elite school like Harvard? A foreign born citizen cannot run a president,just as simple as that,what make him think that our Constitution Rights and other law makers will give him a pass? Does he have brain?
/
The form he released was no the long form birth certificate. Sorry Mr Cruz but you aren't going to pass one over on us that easily. You need to file for the original long form birth certificate. Plus he was born to a Cuban father on Canadian soil. He's not an American and is ineligible to run for president.
Department of health Edmonton? and the righteous right wingers didn't think one from Hawaii was good enough? Maybe they think Edmonton is in Montana? LOL
He's clearly an illegitimate candidate as he can not produce a real U.S. birth certificate. Those are the rules, right GOP? No official U.S. birth certificate(long version only), no candidacy. Period. Oh, what's this? A Canadian birth certificate? Well obviously your credentials are fake. Sorry Ted, we only want Real Americans to run for President, not some universal healthcare loving Canook draped in a Texas accent and smothered in greed and ignorance. Take off you hoser!
No digital picture of the alleged birth certificate. I smell a vast right wing conspiracy.
By this same logic, Obama would have been eligible to be President even if his American mother had given birth to him in Kenya.
Just watch as future President Calgary Cruz sells out to his native Canada. He will approve Keystone XL, which will spill toxic tar sands on US water supplies. He will let Canada move their dirty oil through the US, only to be sold to China for no US benefit. He will work to outsource more jobs to Canada. And his mind is corrupted by Canadian Socialism. I bet he's already planning to implement Single Payer Healthcare and impose all sorts of death panels!
American Patriots! If you love your freedoms, you must reject the secret Canadian socialist! Now, before it's too late!
So, Cruz was clearly born in a foreign country to an American mother with a foreign born father yet he is eligible to be elected president? Obama was born in the United States to an American mother with a foreign born father yet the lunatic fringe think he is not an American citizen?
Cruz may have been born in Canada but he is a certified Tea Party member. His ID-10T form says so.
A Cuban airliner crashes on right on the border between the US and Canada, where do you bury the survivors.?
He is legit. His mother filed for a birth certificate from the US embassy in Canada. Since he didn't go through the naturalization process he is a born citizen.
So – President Obama, born in Hawaii to a U.S mother and a Kenyan father – all kinds of disgusting stupidity from the birthers, right wing whack jobs, conspiracy theorist and GOP – all of which still exist today.
Ted Cruz – NOT born in the U.S to a U.S. mother and a Canadian father – and that's okay, he's a US citizen – move on nothing to see here!
Get some popcorn because this is going to get fun!
GetReal
WOW, This country is still trying to figure out "Born of a US parent....you are a US citizen". Civics classes will be held this afternoon!
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Will your civics class include the part about how American citizens born abroad – even to American parents – aren't eligible to be POTUS unless they were born on a U.S. Military installation or other U.S. government facility?
It's nice to see the whole "birther" nonsense being applied on one of their own.
Like I have said in the past with thsi logic that Ted Cruz is using, Obama could have been born in Kenya, the Moon or in the Andromeda Galaxy and he would still be eligible to run for the presidentcy. Why were we put through such nonsense the last 5 years and in some quarters we are still subjected to it?
Oh boy! I see a long, expensive, government-stopping, investigation coming!
Sorry, no investigation needed, it's OK... Republicans don't investigate their own, it's all good.
Could someone who knows the law (uh, like maybe an attorney who deals with immigration and citizenship issues), please chime in. I'm tired of hearing this birther stuff. Is it not true that if a parent is an American citizen, the child is also an American citizen, no matter the specific part of this world where that birth occurred? Example: Mom is American citizen, dad is citizen of ABC country, and their child is born on an airplane or a boat or in a hospital or by the hands of a midwife in XYZ country. Doesn't matter–the child is an American citizen.
Obama's mother was a US Citizen at the time of his birth. Then why does it make a difference if he was born in Africa or Hawaii?
@Malory Archer – no, it won't, because that would be incorrect. US citizens born abroad are legally natural-born citizens and are indeed eligible to hold the office of POTUS. That's precisely why the birthers are so wrong – even if President Obama had been born in Kenya (a ridiculous idea; two of children were born in a third-world counrty because that's where I was lving at the time, and I assure you that _nobody_ would go there to have their kids _on purpose_), he would still be legally eligible to be POTUS because he is a birthright (AKA natural-born) US citizen. The only other option is to be a natulalized one, and even the birthers agree he is not that.
Pssst . . . Cuban socialist anchor baby.
@ John Barr – no it isn't. It makes the people who are trying it even worse than the birthers.
It is quite funny to watch conservatives mush mouth their explanations on this. Either they reject Cruz as a viable candidate thus saving face, but dissing the latest republican heavy weight or they let him slide and take even more criticism as hypocrites.
I'd imagine they'd figure out a way to do both.