Senator Ted Cruz Rejects Canadian Citizenship

So, Ted Cruz is Canadian.

The Texas senator released his birth certificate to the media yesterday, showing that he was actually born in Calgary, Alberta to an American mother. He has said that he plans to renounce his Canadian heritage.

But Canadian lawyers told the Dallas Morning News that there’s no need. Basically, Cruz holds dual citizenship because of international laws about being born in other countries to American parents. But it’s not that big of a deal for Canada to just drop their end of the bargain since they were as surprised as Cruz’s supporters.

“Sen. Cruz became a U.S. citizen at birth, and he never had to go through a naturalization process after birth to become a U.S. citizen,” Catherine Frazier told the Morning News. “To our knowledge, he never had Canadian citizenship, so there is nothing to renounce.”

Cruz has been an early Tea Party favorite for 2016, and is sometimes a source of controversy on Capitol Hill. Most recently, he is calling on his Republican allies to allow a government shutdown to defund Obamacare.

Though his birthplace has been a subject of scrutiny for weeks, Cruz was pretty unflappable about it.

“Because I was a U.S. citizen at birth, because I left Calgary when I was 4 and have lived my entire life since then in the U.S., and because I have never taken affirmative steps to claim Canadian citizenship, I assumed that was the end of the matter,” Cruz said on the matter.

“Now The Dallas Morning News says that I may technically have dual citizenship. Assuming that is true, then sure, I will renounce any Canadian citizenship. Nothing against Canada, but I’m an American by birth and as a U.S. Senator, I believe I should be only an American.”

And by the way, many have concluded that Cruz still qualifies as a natural born U.S. citizen, meaning he can still run for president, reports Politico. But again, he doesn’t care.

“I’m a citizen by birth. And those are the facts of my birth and I’ll let other people worry about the legal consequences,” Cruz said.

[Image: Gage Skidmore]