Presidential Hopeful Ted Cruz Was Born in Canada – Truth!
Summary of eRumor:
Senator Ted Cruz, who announced that he would run for president in 2016, was born in Canada.
The Truth:
It’s true that Ted Cruz was born in Canada, but that doesn’t mean he can’t run for president.
After Cruz announced that he would run for president in 2016, questions came up about the location of his birth and the status of his citizenship. That wasn’t the first time people have questioned the Texas Republican’s birthplace, either.
Those questions led Cruz to release his birth certificate in 2013. It says he was born in Calgary to Eleanor Wilson and Rafael Bienvenido Cruz. At the time of his birth, Cruz’s mother was an American citizen, and his father was a Cuban citizen, the Dallas Morning News reports:
“The U.S. Constitution allows only a ‘natural born’ American citizen to serve as president. Most legal scholars who have studied the question agree that includes an American born overseas to an American parent, such as Cruz.”
The law says that Cruz’s mother would have had to live in the U.S. for 10 years, and that she had to be older than 14 for at least five of those years, in order for her son to be born a natural U.S. citizen. Nobody has questioned that she did that.
But, oddly enough, Cruz was considered a dual citizen of the U.S. and Canada until he renounced his Canadian citizenship in 2014.
Questions about the citizenship of presidential candidates are not new. Senator John McCain faced questions when he ran for president in 2008 because he was born on a military base in Panama. The Senate ended up passing a resolution that stated McCain was a natural born citizen and was eligible to run for president.
President Obama has also faced questions about his U.S. citizenship throughout his presidency. Click here to read learn more about that.