Ted Cruz Giving Up Canadian Citizenship

Ted Cruz is still a Canadian but he promises he's taking steps to change that, the Dallas Morning News finds. The Texas senator and rumored 2016 hopeful says he has hired lawyers to help him renounce the Canadian citizenship he gained when he was born in Alberta to a Cuban father and American mother. Cruz, who was 4 years old when his parents moved to the US, released his birth certificate earlier this year, but explained that he thought he would have to take "affirmative steps" to have remained a Canadian citizen.

Cruz says the topic of his citizenship came up when he met with prominent "birther" Donald Trump last month, but "not in any significant respect." Despite his birthplace, legal scholars agree that Cruz having been born to an American mother makes him a "natural born" American eligible for the presidency, the Guardian notes, but Cruz denies that renouncing the Maple Leaf has anything to do with designs on the White House. "My political perspective is focused on representing the state of Texas," he says. (More Ted Cruz stories.)