When Donald Trump questioned the eligibility of Ted Cruz to the Office of President due to his birth in a foreign country, the media was challenged to investigate and resolve the question. His mother was an expatriated American born woman and his father was a foreign born man of foreign nationality. Ted's mother had acquired her husbands' citizenship and that citizenship was also acquired by infant Ted. It was necessary for him to apply for Naturalized citizenship upon attaining his age of majority.
Probably a number of knowledgable people know Donald Trump is likewise ineligible to be President due to his foreign born and raised mother of Scottish descent. The multitude of undereducated citizens are likely under the impression that a person has to be eligible to hold an elected office within the National Government in order to be a candidate.
You could ask Vice-President Joe Biden that question and his honest response would be that the person is not required to meet the positions requirements to be a candidate for the position or office.
He was only 29 when he first became a candidate for a seat in the Senate that required the person be 30 years of age to qualify under the Constitution. He won the election, celebrated his thirtieth birthday in November, and having attained the required age was duly sworn a member of the Senate in January.
Because it is questionable as to whether Mr. Cruz had taken the required steps to become a naturalized citizen, he will be referred to as Mister Cruz. It is acknowledged that he has been sworn to a seat in the Senate of the United States and it is not the first time the Senate has accepted a person who did not meet the requirements stipulated by the Constitution.
When Harvard Law School graduate Mr. Cruz first announced his candidacy, he was supported by fellow Harvard Law School graduates Ilya Shapiro, Neal Katyal and Paul Clement. Mr. Shapiro wrote a supportive article from his position as Senior Fellow in Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute while Mr. Katyal and Mr. Clement wrote an article for the Harvard Law Review Forum supportive of Mr. Cruz.
One of the experts questioned about the eligibility of Mr. Cruz was Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe. He, along with former Solicitor General Mr.Theodore Olson, had been instrumental in Senate Resolution 511, passed by the United States Senate April 30, 2008.
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton as co-sponsors had introduced a Resolution in the Senate to declare Senator John McCain a natural born citizen.The Resolution was introduced on April 10, 2008 and was assigned to the Committee on the Judiciary.
There was no doubt in anyone's mind that John McCain was a "natural born citizen" or a citizen at birth, because he was born to citizen parents. There was no doubt in the mind of Senator Claire McCaskill or witness Secretary Chertoff when he testified at a hearing on April 2, 2008.
In fact, the Committee and the entire Senate voted to agree to the Resolution that Senator John McCain was a "natural born citizen" "based on the original meaning of the Constitution, the Framer's intentions, and subsequent legal and historical precedent, Senator McCain's birth to parents who were U. S. citizens, serving on a U. S. military base in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936, makes him a "natural born Citizen" within the meaning of the Constitution."
In the report submitted by Mr. Olson and Professor Tribe was reference to the same Act of Congress that Mr. Cruz refers to when he has been questioned on the eligibility requirement. That Act was "An Act to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization," passed March 26, 1790.
The Constitution in Article I, Section 8, empowers Congress with the responsibility "to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization." The Congress has not been empowered to Rule on the term "natural born citizen" which has been empowered to the Judiciary under Article III, Section 2, from "Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitutions."
The Act to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization is so important it needs to be read in its entirety to be appreciated.
Section 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That any alien, being a free white person, who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen thereof, on application to any common law court of record, in any one of the states wherein he shall have resided for the term of one year at least, and making proof to the satisfaction of such court, that he is a person of good character, and taking the oath or affirmation prescribed by law, to support the constitution of the United States, which oath or affirmation such court shall administer; and the clerk of such court shall record such application, and the proceedings thereon; and thereupon such person shall be considered as a citizen of the United States. And the children of such persons so naturalized, dwelling within the United States, being under the age of twenty-one years at the time of such naturalization, shall also be considered as citizens of the United States. And the children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens: provided, That the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States: Provided also, That no person heretofore proscribed by any state, shall be admitted a citizen as aforesaid, except by an act of the legislature of the state in which such person was proscribed.
This is an Act that is a Naturalization Act and all portions of the Act is a matter of Naturalization. If any portion of this Act is dealing with "natural born Citizenship" it is Unconstitutional because Congress has not been empowered to act on that clause of the Constitution. Congress in recognition that they had overstepped their authority, repealed this Act when a new Naturalization Act was passed January 29, 1795.
Section I of the Naturalization Act started with the declaration "That any alien, being a free white person, may be admitted to become a citizen of the United States, or any of them, on the following conditions, and not otherwise:"
The white person now was required to have resided in the United States five years, in the State or territory where application is made to the proper court one year, and able to convince the court "he has behaved as a man of a good moral character, attached to the principles of the constitution of the United States, and well disposed to the good order and happiness of the same."
The clause referred to by Mr. Cruz was changed to be more correct and in line with the intentions of the Framer's. "And the children of citizens of the United States, born out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States, shall be considered as citizens of the United States."
The Naturalization Act was rewritten and the previous Act repealed for the Naturalization Act approved April 14, 1802. This Act contained slightly different wording. "And the children of persons who now are, or have been citizens of the United States, shall, though born out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States, be considered as citizens of the United States."
The Naturalization Act was modified with a correction by an Act passed March 26, 1804 to cover persons overlooked in the Naturalization Act passed on April 14, 1802.
The Naturalization Act was again in need of modification and another Act was passed on March 22, 1816 that clarified previous Naturalization Acts. And again on May 26, 1824, and May 24, 1828, Naturalizations Acts were passed to correct omissions left out of previous Acts. What remained consistent through all these Naturalization Acts was the requirement that the applicant be a "free white person."
The law that has been established is that a person who is born of a person who is or was a citizen of the United States is eligible to be a naturalized citizen of the United States and that is exactly what Mr. Cruz is, a naturalized citizen of the United States and not a "natural born citizen."
As a Naturalized citizen, Mr. Cruz is ineligible to the Office of President and should he be elected due to his fraud, and Electoral votes accepted by Congress in violation of their Constitutional requirement to refuse those illegal votes, will condemn this nation to another unconstitutional administration.
Richard Carl Shellhorn
Executive Director
