Cruz: Jeb is 'confused' about my citizenship

DES MOINES, Iowa— Texas Sen. Ted Cruz on Friday fired back at Jeb Bush, who a day earlier suggested the senator, who was born in Canada to a son of a Cuban immigrant and American-born mother, was the beneficiary of birthright citizenship.

“I appreciate Governor Bush’s concern. I would note it seems he’s having a problem and getting confused between legal immigration and illegal immigration,” Cruz told reporters here ahead of his soapbox speech at the Iowa State Fair. “With regard to legal citizens, I’m a United States citizen because my mother was a United States citizen, born in Wilmington, Delaware. And it has been the law since the beginning of the country that the children of American citizens born here or abroad are American citizens by birth.”


Cruz, whose father came to the U.S. from Cuba, is advocating the repeal of birthright citizenship protections for the children of illegal immigrants, a position highlighted this week after Donald Trump promoted the idea in his controversial immigration plan.

A day earlier, Bush suggested in New Hampshire that Cruz was the beneficiary of the broader birthright citizenship protection clause of the 14th Amendment. Bush opposes altering that language.

“Now, if people are here legally, they have a visa, and they have a child who’s born here, I think that they ought to be American citizens,” he said. “People like Marco Rubio, by the way, that’s how he came. You know, so to suggest that we make it impossible for a talented person like that not to be a candidate for president — or Ted Cruz. I mean, I think we’re getting a little overboard here, and we’re listening to the emotion rather than to the reality of this.”

Cruz said on Friday, “It seems Governor Bush has that confused with the very different notion that someone who comes here illegally should not have the law grant automatic citizenship to their children if they are here illegally.”