DALLAS, Aug. 21 (UPI) -- U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, says he is giving up Canadian citizenship, a citizenship he says he was not aware he could claim.
Cruz is frequently mentioned as a Republican presidential candidate in 2016. The Constitution requires the president to be a "natural-born citizen," a term the document does not define.
He was born in Calgary, Alberta, 42 years ago, the son of a mother with U.S. citizenship and a Cuban-born father.
Cruz responded to a story Monday in The Dallas Morning News that he legally holds dual citizenship by renouncing any claim to be a Canadian, The New York Times reported.
"The Dallas Morning News says that I may technically have dual citizenship," Cruz, 42, said Monday. "Assuming that is true, then, sure, I will renounce any Canadian citizenship. Nothing against Canada. As a U.S. senator. I believe I should be only an American."
U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who was born in the Panama Canal Zone, where his father was serving as a Navy officer, had to deal with questions about whether he could be president when he ran in 2008. And President Obama, born in Hawaii to a U.S. mother and Kenyan father, has had to deal with "birthers" who say his Hawaiian birth certificate was forged despite state officials' insistence that everything is in order.
