“NO PERSON, EXCEPT A NATURAL BORN CITIZEN…”
by Sharon Rondeau
(Feb. 19, 2016) — On “Your World” with Neil Cavuto on Friday, former presidential candidate and U.S. Senator Bob Dole told Cavuto that he is “100% for Jeb Bush” in the 2016 election.
When asked, he detailed why he does not support Sen. Ted Cruz, describing him as “overly ambitious” and “entered the Senate as a Canadian citizen.” (h/t Gateway Pundit)
Dole also said that Cruz had faulted Dole for not being a “right-wing extremist.”
Cavuto did not address Dole’s reference to Cruz’s Canadian citizenship by virtue of his birth in Calgary, Alberta, Canada on December 22, 1970. Cruz, in fact, was a Canadian citizen until he applied to renounce the citizenship in May 2014 following a Dallas Morning News article publicizing what it reported as Cruz’s dual citizenship with the U.S.
Article II, Section 1, clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution requires the president to be a “natural born Citizen.” Cruz now insists that he is a “natural born American.”
Many media outlets have conflated “citizen” with the higher standard of “natural born Citizen” required only of the president and commander-in-chief.
Cruz has not released any documentation showing that he was registered as a U.S. citizen at birth or later in life to a U.S.-citizen mother and Cuban-citizen father, the latter of whom reportedly became a Canadian citizen in 1973.
Cruz’s mother, Eleanor Darragh Cruz, does not speak publicly; she and Rafael Bienvenido Cruz reportedly divorced in 1997.
A lawsuit filed in Illinois challenges Cruz’s constitutional eligibility to serve as president because of his Canadian birth. A ballot challenge filed by two New York residents will be adjudicated on Tuesday. Robert Laity, a reader of The Post & Email residing in New York, also filed a challenge naming Cruz, Marco Rubio and Bobby Jindal as ineligible.
Scholars, writers, pundits and attorneys have both advocated for and contested Cruz’s eligibility by virtue of his birth to a U.S.-citizen parent.
Until The Dallas Morning News’s August 18, 2013 article suggesting that Cruz’s “dual citizenship” could pose a problem should he seek the presidency, Cruz said he did not know he held citizenship in Canada.