Senator Ted Cruz was a Canadian citizen until after he entered the US Senate in 2014.
Cruz may have entered the US illegally in 1974.
A New Jersey judge today ruled the former Canadian is eligible to appear on the state’s primary ballot.
NJ.com reported:
Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz is a “natural-born citizen” under the U.S. Constitution and therefore can run in the June 7 New Jersey primary, a state administrative law judge said Tuesday.
“The more persuasive legal analysis is that such a child, born of a citizen-father, citizen-mother, or both, is indeed a ‘natural born citizen’ within the contemplation of the Constitution,” Administrative Law Judge Jeff Masin wrote.
A group of New Jersey residents and a Catholic University of America law professor insisted that Cruz, born in Canada to an American mother and a Cuban father, did not meet the constitutional requirements to be president.
The issue now goes to New Jersey Secretary of State Kim Guadagno, who will make a ruling that can be appealed in state court. Guadagno is also lieutenant governor.
Masin wrote in a 26-page decision that the issue of whether a child born outside the U.S. to an American citizen is eligible to be president “can never be entirely free of doubt, at least barring a definitive ruling” of the U.S. Supreme Court.
“Absolute certainty as to this issue is only available to those who actually sat in Philadelphia and themselves thought on the issue” even after “having weighed the arguments as they are presented by those trying to understand the framers’ intent,” the judge wrote.
Similar arguments have been rejected in Pennsylvania, where Cruz — a U.S. senator representing Texas — will appear on the state’s primary ballot on April 26.