WASHINGTON — Born in Canada to an American mother, Ted Cruz became an instant U.S. citizen. But under Canadian law, he also became a citizen of that country the moment he was born. 
 
 Unless the Texas Republican senator formally renounces that citizenship, he will remain a citizen of both countries, legal experts say. 
 
 That means he could assert the right to vote in Canada or even run for Parliament. On a lunch break from the U.S. Senate, he could head to the nearby embassy — the one flying a bright red maple leaf flag — pull out his Calgary, Alberta, birth certificate and obtain a passport. 
 
 “He’s a Canadian,” said Toronto lawyer Stephen Green, past chairman of the Canadian Bar Association’s Citizenship and Immigration Section. 
 
 The circumstances of Cruz’s birth have fueled a simmering debate over his eligibility to run for president. Knowingly or not, dual citizenship is an apparent if inconvenient truth for the tea party firebrand, who shows every sign he’s angling for the White House. 
 
 “Senator Cruz became a U.S. citizen at birth, and he never had to go through a naturalization process after birth to become a U.S. citizen,” said spokeswoman Catherine Frazier. “To our knowledge, he never had Canadian citizenship.” 
 
 The U.S. Constitution allows only a “natural born” American citizen to serve as president. Most legal scholars who have studied the question agree that includes an American born overseas to an American parent, such as Cruz. 
 
 The Constitution says nothing about would-be presidents born with dual citizenship. 
 
 Detractors have derided Cruz as “Canadian Ted,” saying he can’t run for president because he wasn’t born on U.S. soil. 
 
 Cruz, a Harvard-trained lawyer and former clerk for the U.S. chief justice, disagrees. He reasserted last week that being an American by birth makes him eligible. 
 
 Looking ahead 
 
 Two visits in recent weeks to Iowa, the first state to winnow the field of presidential candidates, set off a fresh flurry of commentary on the issue. He heads to New Hampshire, another early voting state, on Friday — another strong sign that he’s eyeing a 2016 run. 
 
 The political impact of his citizenship status remains to be seen. Doubts about President Barack Obama’s heritage dogged him throughout 2008 and persist among hardcore “birthers.” 
 
 Officials at Citizenship and Immigration Canada said that without a signed privacy waiver from Cruz, they cannot discuss his case. 
 
 “Generally speaking, under the Citizenship Act of 1947, those born in Canada were automatically citizens at birth unless their parent was a foreign diplomat,” said ministry spokeswoman Julie Lafortune. 
 
 For the first time, Cruz released his birth certificate Friday in response to inquiries from The Dallas Morning News. 
 
 Dated a month after his birth on Dec. 22, 1970, it shows that Rafael Edward Cruz was born to Rafael Bienvenido Cruz, a “geophysical consultant” born in Matanzas, Cuba, and the former Eleanor Elizabeth Wilson, born in Wilmington, Del. 
 
 Her status made the baby a U.S. citizen at birth. For that, U.S. law required at least one parent who was a U.S. citizen who had lived for at least a decade in the United States. 
 
 She registered his birth with the U.S. consulate, Frazier said, and the future senator received a U.S. passport in 1986 ahead of a high school trip to England. 
 
 Rafael Cruz, now a pastor in suburban Dallas, fled Cuba for Texas as a teen in 1957. He remained a Cuban citizen until he became a naturalized American in 2005. 
 
 Automatic citizenship 
 
 Until 1947, people born in Canada were British subjects. The system Canada adopted after that closely mirrors that of the U.S. 
 
 Both confer citizenship automatically to anyone born on their territory, and to children of citizens even when the birth takes place overseas. 
 
 By 1970, the Cruzes had moved to the Canadian oil patch, where they launched a seismic-data business. For purpose of citizenship, being foreigners made no difference. 
 
 “If a child was born in the territory, he is Canadian, period,” said France Houle, a law professor at the University of Montreal. “He can ask for a passport. He can vote.” 
 
 The fact that Cruz left Canada when he was 4 doesn’t affect his status there, either. 
 
 “If you leave when you’re 2 minutes old, you’re still an American. It’s the same in Canada,” said Allison Christians, a law professor at McGill University in Montreal. “He’s a Canadian citizen.” 
 
 Having practiced international tax law in the U.S. for 25 years, Christians has made a close study of citizenship rules. They often come into play in tax cases. 
 
 “They can feel as American as they want. But the question of citizenship is determined by the law of the territory in which you were physically born,” she said. “It’s not up to the Cruz family to decide whether they’re citizens.” 
 
 As a Cuban, Rafael Cruz probably could have requested citizenship for his son, experts said. Even if he’d wanted to, the Cuban Constitution bans dual citizenship. And the chance to register the child passed long ago. 
 
 “The U.S. and Cuba have very similar legal patterns and requirements,” said David Abraham, a professor of immigration and citizenship law at the University of Miami. 
 
 The situation reflects the overlapping jurisdictions, said Demetrios Papademetriou, president of the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute, who called birthright citizenship common in English-speaking countries. 
 
 “If Ted Cruz was born in Canada, he is Canadian. He is American. He is a dual citizen,” he said. 
 
 That’s not uncommon in Canada, especially in French-speaking Quebec. But even there it can cause headaches for politicians. 
 
 In 2006, Canada’s Liberal Party Leader Stéphane Dion — born in Quebec City and also a citizen of France, his mother’s homeland — gave into a public uproar. He promised, reluctantly, to give up his French citizenship if he became prime minister, which never happened. 
 
 Taxes 
 
 Unlike the U.S., which requires its citizens to pay taxes no matter where they live in the world, Canada only taxes people who reside there. 
 
 So there’s rarely much reason to relinquish Canadian citizenship. 
 
 For Cruz, though, it may become a political imperative. Though it would not affect his eligibility for the presidency, he could face questions about whether it’s appropriate for a commander in chief to have dual citizenship. 
 
 The relinquishment process is easy enough. It can take from a few weeks to a year. There’s a four-page form with a $100 fee. Applicants must appear before a special judge to prove they have citizenship elsewhere and aren’t engaged in fraud. 
 
 Records are kept private. 
 
 Green, one of Canada’s top immigration lawyers, has counseled pro sports teams, athletes and major corporations. He knows one person who renounced his Canadian citizenship as a condition of joining the U.S. Secret Service. 
 
 “I’ve done it for people,” he said. “No problem.” 
 
 Follow Todd J. Gillman on Twitter at @toddgillman. 

 Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, a likely candidate for president in 2016, released his Canadian birth certificate over the weekend, but that's unlikely to end discussion about whether he meets the Constitution's ill-defined standard of natural-born citizenship. 
 
 "Clearly there is an issue of eligibility," crusading skeptic of President Barack Obama's birth certificate Orly Taitz told U.S. News. "It's basically the same issue as Obama has." 
 
 Cruz was born in Calgary, Canada, in 1970, according to the document. He automatically acquired U.S. citizenship through his American mother, but he also likely gained automatic Canadian citizenship. 
 
 "He's a Canadian" too, Stephen Green, a past chairman of the Canadian Bar Association's Citizenship and Immigration Section, told the Dallas Morning News. 
 
 [SCHLESINGER: 2016 Already in Danger of Jumping the Shark] 
 
 Obama's birthplace was the subject of popular conspiracy theories during his first term. He released his Hawaii birth certificate in April 2011. A poll conducted by Gallup days before the release found just 38 percent of Americans believed Obama was definitely born in the U.S. 
 
 Cruz, however, showed an interest in not allowing the issue to fester. He did the same thing during his 2012 Senate campaign by openly admitting that his father, Rafael Cruz, fought alongside Communist leader Fidel Castro during the Cuban Revolution. His father fled the island in 1957, before Castro came to power, and reportedly became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2005. 
 
 'Birther' jokes begin on Twitter: 
 
 I've been looking at this "Ted" Cruz birth certificate & I think he's trying pull a fast one pic.twitter.com/2dfGCugPR6 — Buh Bye GOP (@BuhByeGOP) August 19, 2013 
 
 "I think that Ted Cruz is correct in addressing this issue early on and I commend it," Taitz said. She added: "not only does he need to release his birth certificate, but he needs to go to court and have a high-ranking judge ... make a determination on this issue." 
 
 Taitz, a Russian-born dentist, recommends that Cruz seek declaratory relief from a judge to determine if he qualifies as a natural-born citizen. 
 
 "If until the 2016 election we don't find one honest judge [to declare Obama ineligible for the presidency]," Taitz said, she will encourage people to vote for Cruz "if they feel he is the best candidate to turn the country around ... because we won't have any rule of law." 
 
 [READ: Cruz Brushes Off Romney's Obamacare Advice] 
 
 In addition to being, in her opinion, ineligible for the presidency, Taitz also believes Obama forged his birth certificate and stole a dead man's Social Security number. 
 
 After inspecting Cruz's birth certificate, she said, "I did not see any evidence of fraud." 
 
 It's unclear what Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio thinks about Cruz's eligibility. The sheriff convened a "cold case posse" in 2012 to evaluate Obama's birth certificate and at a stunning press conference declared it a "computer-generated forgery." 
 
 A spokesman for Arpaio did not immediately respond to a U.S. News request for comment. 
 
 Billionaire real estate developer Donald Trump, who hassled Obama over his birthplace repeatedly ahead of the 2012 election, however, may join Taitz in being a consistent eligibility stickler. Earlier this month Trump told ABC News that Cruz is "perhaps not" eligible for the presidency. 
 
 More News:
– In an effort to silence the whispers about his presidential eligibility, Ted Cruz released his birth certificate yesterday, and sure enough, he's Canadian. The Texas senator gave the certificate to the Dallas Morning News, which reveals that Cruz was born to an American mother and Cuban father in Canada. His parentage automatically made him a US citizen, which most legal scholars believe is good enough to satisfy the Constitution's "natural born citizen" requirement. But he could also theoretically run for Canadian parliament, because he's a full citizen there, too—though Cruz isn't acknowledging that. Asked if he'd renounce his dual citizenship, a spokeswoman said, "To our knowledge, he never had Canadian citizenship, so there is nothing to renounce," according to USA Today. Cruz's political enemies are eager to use his birthplace against him, with some dubbing him "Canadian Ted." It's also not enough for so-called "birther queen" Orly Taitz, who tells US News & World Report that Cruz has "basically the same issue as Obama has." But she applauded him for addressing the issue, and said that if no "honest judge" would rule Obama ineligible, that people might as well vote for Cruz, "because we won't have any rule of law."