But the law on whether her foreign-born son is 'natural born' is in questionīut the lack of a definitive judgment means that both opinions remain precisely that - even if the one Cruz opposes is, at least at the moment, apparently a minority. The other strand of opinion says that the 1795 act defines who is born with citizenship, and that means Cruz is - and for that matter McCain and others were - eligible for the presidency.Ĭertainly a citizen: Ted Cruz's mother, Eleanor Darragh, was born in Delaware, making her a US citizen, and therefore her children too. That would have ruled other previous contenders ineligible too, including John McCain (born in a military base in Panama), George Romney, father of Mitt, (born in Mexico to American missionary parents) and Barry Goldwater (born in Arizona when it was a territory, not a state). One strand of opinion - which Cruz says is flatly wrong - holds that being 'natural born' means born in the United States. There is a key division of legal opinion on whether to qualify to be a 'natural born citizen' is a higher bar than simply being a citizen from birth. It is the only place the phrase appears in current US law and crucially, the Supreme Court has never ruled on what precisely it means. There is no dispute that Cruz's mother, who was born and brought up in Delaware and worked in New Orleans and Texas before moving to Canada in her early 30s meets that requirement.īut the facts end - and the legal dispute begins - with the Constitution and its requirement that presidents be 'natural born citizens'. In its current form, it says that for a child born between Decemand November 14 1986, to a US citizen and an alien, the US citizen has to have had 'physical presence' in the US for 'a period of ten years, five after the age of fourteen' for their child to be a citizen at birth. It is qualified by further legislation, starting with the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, a piece of legislation which has been repeatedly updated.
His father was a Cuban who had been previously resident in the United States but was not at the time a US citizen.Ĭruz is therefore automatically, under the 1795 Naturalization Act, a citizen, as that law says that the children of US citizens born overseas are themselves US citizens. His mother was at the time an American citizen, having been born in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1934. Rafael Edward 'Ted' Cruz was born in Calgary, Canada on 22 December 1970. Ted Cruz is not the first presidential candidate to face a 'birther' controversy - but this one is very different from the questions over Barack Obama's place of birth.
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