WhatFinger


Douglas Gibbs article re: Ted Cruz

Ted Cruz's eligibility



In the Douglas Gibbs article re: Ted Cruz, he raised a point that diplomat children are not American. That is not actually completely true, as it depends on the American rules at the time the child was born.

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I am a Canadian citizen who was married to another Canadian citizen, both of us having parents born in Canada. While we were on a posting to the U.S. Consulate-General in New York, my husband being Vice-Council, I bore a daughter. Both Canada and the U.S. claim that she is a citizen. You have to check the rules for the dates in both countries when the child was born, as well as the rules as they also subsequently changed in both countries. At one point, the rules said she had to choose at age 18, but that rule disappeared before she reached that age. Currently, my daughter lives and works in the U.S. as an American. Had we been posted to the Embassy in Washington or the UN in 1975, she would not have had American citizenship, but there was a quirk in the rules at that time, with children born to Canadian diplomats who worked at the Consulate-Generals vs. the Embassy in Washington. I know because I was very concerned about this at the time, as I wanted to make sure that she was Canadian. So far, my daughter has had a net benefit, but I still worry about changes in the rules. In Canada we have changed the rules; now, if she marries an American or a citizen of another country, my grandchildren will not have Canadian citizenship if they are not born in Canada. That said, the article is likely correct in that his mother was American, so he probably is too, but did you check? You should check the American rules though as, at one time, only the citizenship of father was considered. One has to check the U.S. rules that were in effect at the time of his birth in 1970. Obviously, Canada considered him to be Canadian at that time, but I do not know what the 1970 U.S. rules were regarding births abroad to American mothers. Please advise the author to do his homework before writing an article. Maybe Congress needs to start spelling out the rules on who is a naturally-born citizen and exactly what documentation is needed to prove it to avoid all these silly partisan bun fights. What is this, amateur hour in the U.S.? It is pretty easy .... After all, these rules have been in place for a long time now for all living Americans in the immigration and citizenship rules you have had for over 100 years. I was also born in Calgary and had a lot of American friends with parents in the oil industry as I grew up. Leslie Grauer


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Guest Column Leslie Grauer -- Bio and Archives

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