While the nation's legal scholars differ over the exact meaning of the Constitution's requirement that a person must be a "natural born citizen" to become president, they're unanimous in saying Ted Cruz is wrong about an important point, NBC News reported.
"As a legal matter, the question is quite straightforward and settled law," Cruz has said. "People will continue to make political noise about it, but as a legal matter it is quite straightforward."
In fact, the experts say, it is neither settled nor straightforward.
The Constitution does not define "natural born," a phrase that appears in the nation's founding document only once. And though the federal courts have tackled the issue, the U.S. Supreme Court has never decided the issue.
Ted Cruz was born in Canada in 1970 where his Cuban father was working at the time. But Cruz's mother was an American citizen, so under U.S. immigration law, that made him an American citizen, too.
