Republican presidential candidate and Texas Senator Ted Cruz is yet again facing an issue that could cause him his race towards his presidency. In fact, the Canadian-born senator is currently challenged by a "birther" lawsuit, questioning his citizenship.
According to NY Daily News, Newton Schwartz, an attorney from Cruz's "adopted hometown" of Houston has filed a "birther" complaint against the senator, questioning his eligibility be one of the candidates for president of the United States. In the court proceedings, the lawyer is asking the Supreme Court to decide whether Cruz would be violating the "natural born" requirement of a president if he ever wins in the upcoming election.
The 45-year old senator was born in Calgary, Alberta in Canada, to an American mother, Eleonor Darragh, and a Cuban father, Rafael Cruz. While his place of birth does not fit the "natural born" citizen requirement of the presidency, Cruz has incessantly claimed that because his mother is an American, he is still considered "natural born."
However, the U.S.Constitution states that, "no Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President." Even after more than two centuries, this section of the Constitution has yet to be decided by the Supreme Court. "Only the U.S. Supreme Court can finally decide, determine judicially, and settle this issue now," Scharwtz claimed in the suit.
What added spice to the issue is the Republican rival and business tycoon Donald Trump as he took to Twitter on Saturday, following the news about the "birther" lawsuit. Trump stated on his Twitter account, "Ted Cruz was born in Canada and was a Canadian citizen until 15 months ago. Lawsuits have just been filed with more to follow. I told you so."
Before the controversy, the senator felt everything was fine, not realizing that he still had Canadian citizenship until the Dallas Morning News raised the issue. In fact, the Law professor Mary Brigid McManamon even wrote for The Washington Post that Cruz can't possibly be qualified to run as president because he was not physically born in the United States. That's when Ted Cruz allegedly renounced his Canadian citizenship in 2014, and soon after announcing that he was running as U.S. president.
However, according to Article II, Section I of the Constitution via Forbes, the definition of "natural born citizen" is that the person in question was born within the United States, or outside the country, provided that his parents are American. This means that the complete "natural born" issue only aims to make the line between citizens at birth and naturalized citizens. In addition, the Constitution only recognizes two types of citizenship, these are the natural born and naturalized.
For now, people are claiming that if Ted Cruz isn't naturalized, then he must be natural born to qualify as a candidate. And as of the moment, Cruz believes that this attack is a desperate move by Trump to recover support from the Republicans after his different controversies.
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