As Ted Cruz announces his White House candidacy, let me forestall a new round of birtherism prompted by the discovery that the Texas senator was actually born in a different oil patch: Calgary, Alberta, Canada. I looked at the whole “natural-born citizen” requirement a couple of years ago and concluded that Cruz’s eligibility for the presidency is an easy legal call. Here’s the heart of the matter:
So the one remaining question is whether Ted Cruz was a citizen at birth. That’s an easy one. The Nationality Act of 1940 outlines which children become “nationals and citizens of the United States at birth.” In addition to those who are born in the United States or born outside the country to parents who were both citizens … citizenship goes to babies born to one American parent who has spent a certain number of years here.
That single-parent requirement has been amended several times, but under the law in effect between 1952 and 1986 — Cruz was born in 1970 — someone must have a citizen parent who resided in the United States for at least 10 years, including five after the age of 14, in order to be considered a natural-born citizen. Cruz’s mother, Eleanor Darragh, was born in Delaware, lived most of her life in the United States, and gave birth to little Rafael Edward Cruz in her 30s.
In an amusing footnote, when this mild controversy first arose, Cruz quickly renounced any claim to Canadian citizenship. This prompted my good friend and sometime co-author Josh Blackman to present me with a filled-out renunciation application after I naturalized as a U.S. citizen last June. I have not signed or submitted this document, however, because there’s really no need — and who knows when a second passport might come in handy? (The State Department allows dual citizenship even though the naturalization oath requires a new citizen to “renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen.”) Rest assured that if I’m ever required to give up my Canadian citizenship to get a security clearance or for some other official reason, I will do so, much as I owe to the country where I grew up after my family left the Soviet Union.
