Ted Cruz to Renounce Natural Born Citizenship

Ted Cruz to Renounce Natural Born Citizenship Dec 30, 2013 15:22:55 GMT

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Post by ShivaTD on Dec 30, 2013 15:22:55 GMT

This is not unexpected but apparently Sen Ted Cruz has started the legal process to renounce his natural born Canadian citizenship. With only one factual error the story is reported as follows:

Texas Senator Ted Cruz has retained counsel to help him renounce his Canadian citizenship. Cruz was born in Calgary in 1970, where he automatically received U.S. citizenship due to his mother being an American citizen, as well as Canadian citizenship for being born within their territory.

When the dual citizenship was first brought to light back in August, Cruz was quick to announce that he would be abandoning the land colloquially referred to as America's Hat in order to focus full-time on the U.S. government (and shutting down said government). His statement read, "Nothing against Canada, but I'm an American by birth and as a U.S. senator; I believe I should be only an American."

The factual error is that Ted Cruz did not "automatically" become a US citizen based upon the US citizenship of his parent(s). That citizenship must be filed for and is granted under the Constitutional authority of Congress to establish uniform laws of naturalization. There is nothing automatic about it as it must be filed for unlike natural born citizenship that is established by birth and not by an application for citizenship.

There is prior precendent that establishes this as a fact as Leeland Davidson was also born in Canada and both of his parents were US citizens but when he was in his 90's he found out that he had never been a US citizen even though he'd also served in the US military during WW II and always assumed he was a US citizen. It wasn't "automatic" for Leeland Davidson and it wasn't "automatic" for Ted Cruz either. Leeland Davidson did file and was granted US citizenship because his parents were US citizens at the time of his birth in Canada but he hadn't been a US citizen for over 90 years. There are literally tens of thousands of children of US parents born in foreign countries that are not US citizens because the parents or they never filed for US citizenship that is granted under the statutory immigration and naturalization laws of the United States.

Like the United States, Canada also recognizes "natural born citizenship" based upon Jus Soli and Ted Cruz is actually renouncing his "natural born citizenship" as a Canadian and deferring to his US citizenship established under the naturalization laws passed by the US Congress.