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Why is Ted Cruz Muddying the Waters about Citizenship?

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Published on: January 12, 2016

For those that might think I’m picking on Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) because of the entire natural born citizen requirement in the Constitution, I’m not. There have been many things that I have written about Cruz which I’m in agreement with, but people are going to have to deal with this issue constitutionally and rightly or in a couple of years, we may just have the very scenario I presented yesterday in our country (By the way, Cruz says to exclude Muslims from the White House would be unconstitutional). With that said, I was sent a video, in which Ted Cruz was interviewed in 2011 and in 2015 concerning birthright citizenship. In the two interviews, it appears that Cruz is completely flip flopping on his position. Could it be that it is the result of a twisted view of what natural born citizen means and thus how he applies the understanding of citizenship?

On the Duke Machado Show in August of 2011, Cruz was asked about those who wanted to allow birthright citizenship.

“I have spent my professional career defending the Constitution,” Cruz began. “I served five and a half years as the Solicitor General of Texas, the chief lawyer for the state of Texas in front of the US Supreme Court, and I’ve repeatedly defended the Constitution.”

“The Fourteenth Amendment provides for birthright citizenship,” Cruz affirmed. “I’ve looked at the legal arguments listed, and I will tell you as a Supreme Court litigator, those arguments are not very good.”

“As much as someone may dislike the policy of birthright citizenship, it’s in the US Constitution,” he added. “And I don’t like it when federal judges set aside the Constitution because their policy preferences are different, and so my view, I think it’s a mistake for conservatives to be focusing on trying to fight what the Constitution says about birthright citizenship. I think we are far better off focusing on securing the border because birthright citizenship wouldn’t be an issue if we didn’t have people coming in illegally.”

Well, the fact that Cruz claims it’s in the Constitution makes it an issue with or without illegal immigrants. However, notice that he appeals to legal arguments and not to the reason and intent of the Fourteenth Amendment, which was amended to the Constitution for a certain people at a certain time, namely the people of the Confederate States of America. It should have never had any impact beyond that generation!

Of course, Cruz got animated after that in the video, but later on in the video (around the 1:49 mark), another interview took place in August of 2015. He was again asked about birthright citizenship, but this time listen to his answer.

“I think we need to end birthright citizenship,” he said. “As a policy matter it doesn’t make any sense that we should be incentivizing illegal immigration. There’s no reason that federal law should state that if someone is here illegally that their children are automatically US citizens.”

So wait, in 2011, Cruz claims birthright citizenship is in the Constitution and that conservatives didn’t need to focus on such a thing. In 2015, he’s telling us it has to end because of illegals, which is the very issue he was dealing with in 2011. Why the focus? Why the change from “it’s in the Constitution” in 2011 to “as a policy matter” in 2015?

He spoke about Donald Trump bringing up the issue, but remember, Cruz has defended the Constitution, right? Yet, he told us birthright citizenship is in the Constitution in 2011 and in 2015, he addresses it as policy. Trump said it wouldn’t stand up in court when he referenced deporting such illegals claiming birthright citizenship.

In the video, Cruz claims to have held to Trumps perspective “for many years” and specifically referenced 2011. Now that is just untrue. Are you going to believe what he’s saying in the 2015 video or what he said in the 2011 video?

The Fourteenth Amendment reads:

Section1: All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.

Senator Jacob Howard has said that the idea of “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” meant “not owing allegiance to anybody else…subject to the complete jurisdiction of the United States.”

Howard wrote:

“Every person born within the limits of the United States, subject to their jurisdiction, [meaning the states – their jurisdiction] is, by virtue of natural law and national law, a citizen of the United States. This will not, of course, include persons in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons. It settles the great question of citizenship and removes all doubt as to what persons are or are not citizens of the United States. This has long been a great issue in the jurisprudence and legislation of this country.”

So, the question that comes to mind is not so much about illegals. I think that is clear cut answer. They are not citizens, period.

However, what of this allegiance question? The Common Constitutionalist cites Mark Levin and writes, “‘You can’t self-immigrate. You can’t claim jurisdiction because you happen to walk into the United States,’ and you can’t magically become a citizen if both your parents have fidelity to another nation.”

However, I ask the question, can you magically become a citizen if your father had fidelity to another nation? We know that Cruz’s father and mother were on the 1974 Canadian Electors’ list, according to documents obtained from Breitbart. We also know that Canadian law forbids anyone but Canadian citizens from voting. Though no evidence was discovered that Cruz’s mother ever voted, we do know that his father was not only a Cuban citizen at one time, but also a Canadian citizen.

What’s most amazing is that Breitbart added:

Immigration attorney Joshua Goldstein told Breitbart News that Ted Cruz would still be a natural-born citizen, and eligible for the presidency, even if his mother had taken Canadian citizenship, whether before or after his birth.

“She could vote in Canada, and it wouldn’t affect her U.S. citizenship,” he added.

“The fact that his mother might have been Canadian at birth, as well as American at birth, would be irrelevant.”

Say what? How would that take place? See how twisted this gets people when we don’t stick to the simple understanding that Vattel laid out in the Law of Nations and that our founders understood and penned in the 1790 Naturalization Act? Yeah, I know it was later changed, but the fact of the matter is that document lays out for us a clear understanding of what the founders meant by the phrase natural born citizen. Now the Fourteenth Amendment, an amendment for a specific time for a specific people, is being dragged into this mess and it’s only muddying the waters.

Both Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are facing a ballot access lawsuit because of their ineligibility according to the Constitution’s requirement that one be a natural born citizen.

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