Pennsylvania Judge Rules Cruz Eligible

A judge in Pennsylvania rules that anyone born a citizen is a “Natural Born Citizen.”

 

The judge relies on several pieces of legal scholarship. First,  a memo produced in 1968 by Charles Gordon, then the General Counsel of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service, which says: “The Framers were well aware of the need to assure full citizenship rights to the children born to American citizens in foreign countries.”  He also points out a 2011 Congressional Research Service Memo entitled the “Qualification for President and the ‘Natural Born’ Citizenship Eligibility Requirement.” The document concludes:

“The weight of legal and historical authority indicated that the term ‘natural born’ citizen would mean a person, who is entitled to U.S. citizenship ‘by birth’ or ‘at birth’ either by being born ‘in’ the United States and under its jurisdiction, even those born to alien parents; by being born abroad to U.S. citizen-parents.”

Another ruling was handed down March 19 in Utah. This judge dismissed the case due to standing, but also made the comment that Cruz is a US citizen by birth. Other cases in Illinois, Florida and New York have also been dismissed due to legal technicalities.