Is Ted Cruz constitutionally eligible to be President?

[Slander and/or Libel]

While the answer is obviously yes, he isn't by the standards of many birthers, thus creating a bit of a conundrum.

No he's born in Canada

He was born in Canada to an American citizen mother, which makes him a natural-born US citizen. If Obama had been born in Kenya, he would also still be eligible for the same reason.

Not true.  The American-citizen parent must have lived in the United States for at least 5 years after the age of 14.  Obama's mother had not qualified to transmit citizenship to her children.

Source please.

[Slander and/or Libel]

While the answer is obviously yes, he isn't by the standards of many birthers, thus creating a bit of a conundrum.

No he's born in Canada

He was born in Canada to an American citizen mother, which makes him a natural-born US citizen. If Obama had been born in Kenya, he would also still be eligible for the same reason.

Not true.  The American-citizen parent must have lived in the United States for at least 5 years after the age of 14.  Obama's mother had not qualified to transmit citizenship to her children.

Source please.

8 USC 1401(g).  At the time Obama was born, for a child born abroad with one alien parent and one citizen parent to be a citizen, the citizen parent had to have resided 10 years in the US with at least 5 years after the age of 14. In 1986, the law was amended to make those limits 5 and 2 respectively, but even assuming that change would have granted him citizenship it wouldn't made him a natural-born citizen as he wouldn't have been a citizen from birth.  Since his mother was only 18 when Obama was born, it would have been impossible for her to meet the 5 year requirement had she given birth abroad.

So the birthers weren't entirely insane, only mostly insane because even after proof he'd be been born in Hawaii was submitted, they refused to believe it and continued to insist he'd been born in Kenya, which if true would have debarred Barack from the presidency.

Thanks for that.

What would have been the rationale behind that? Punishment to people having children too young? Like, what's the policy rationale?

[Slander and/or Libel]

8 USC 1401(g).  At the time Obama was born, for a child born abroad with one alien parent and one citizen parent to be a citizen, the citizen parent had to have resided 10 years in the US with at least 5 years after the age of 14. In 1986, the law was amended to make those limits 5 and 2 respectively, but even assuming that change would have granted him citizenship it wouldn't made him a natural-born citizen as he wouldn't have been a citizen from birth.  Since his mother was only 18 when Obama was born, it would have been impossible for her to meet the 5 year requirement had she given birth abroad.

Thanks for that.

What would have been the rationale behind that? Punishment to people having children too young? Like, what's the policy rationale?

Let's say that you are a foreign student studying in this country, when you give birth to a US Citizen (by the 14th Amendment).  Let's imagine that Barack Obama, Sr. had impregnated a student from Canada, instead of Ann Dunham.  Obama Sr. soon splits to go to Harvard and then moves back to Kenya.  The mother and Obama Jr. move to Montreal.  Obama Jr. moves to France and has a child.  The child doesn't speak a word of English, and thinks of himself as Canadian or French or perhaps Algerian or Malian depending on the mother.  Why should he be considered an American?

And if citizenship could be transmitted indefinitely through birth, the last actual contact with the USA was centuries ago.  Or consider the equivalent - why should I be able to claim British, Swedish, Irish, German, or French citizenship based on descent from persons who left those countries more than a century ago?

Now consider if the Canadian mother moves to Indonesia, but leaves her son with her Canadian parents who are living in Hawaii.  Obama, Jr. experience growing up among Americans.  Even if he later as an adult moves to France the child would at least have a connection with the US.

Note that one time, an American women who moves to a foreign country with her husband was considered to have voluntarily given up her US citizenship.  And at one time, citizenship was only transmitted through the father.

That doesn't answer the question, really. Why would it be that, for instance, a pregnant 16 year old US citizen who gives birth prematurely abroad (on a vacation, let's say) would not transmit citizenship to her child? What's the rationale for that?

[Slander and/or Libel]

I'm looking at the other side. What if in 1961 a 17 year old gave birth while living with her parents abroad because her father got assigned to a temporary work assignment abroad, and then moved back to the US a month later? Is she less connected to the US than somebody who left at 19, never came back, and had a kid 10 years later?

[Slander and/or Libel]

You're saying in my hypothetical the child of the younger mother has more divided allegiance than the child of the mother who hasn't lived in the US for ten years and has no intention of going back?

[Slander and/or Libel]

I'm just asking what the policy rationale was in the early case for the 5 years after age 14 restriction, and one hasn't really been given. Not one that makes any sense.