Ted Cruz is trying to nip Cruz birtherism in the bud by releasing his birth certificate andrenouncing his Canadian citizenship — though the de-Canadaization process could take up to eight months. Cruz was born in Canada to an American mother and a Cuban father, so he is an American citizen. But that is not good enough for some birthers. The GOP’s winking not-quite-embrace of birther movement and the nativism it represents is not without consequence. At the core of birtherism is the sense that an outsider has infiltrated the nation and clawed his way to illegitimate power in order to serve foreign interests. For a party that is worried about its standing with Latino voters, it’s not a good look.

But don’t take our word for it. Orly Taitz, long known as the Birther Queen, wove these two issues together seamlessly when we spoke to her about Cruz. Some people in Congress, Taitz said, are “pushing this huge amnesty” bill, which would offer a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants that she says will cost Americans jobs. “They’re saying, ‘Trust us, we’ll check E-Verify,'” Taitz says, “but they’re failing to address the issue that Obama failed E-Verify.”

Cruz is one of the most famous Latino Republicans in public office, and unlike fellow Latino Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, he hasn’t infuriated the conservative base by supporting a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Even so, Cruz has to deal with suspicion from conservative voters that he’s disqualified to be president because of where his dad was born.

“With Ted Cruz we have similar issues as we do have with Barack Obama,” Taitz told us. She’s focused on two problems: verifying the documents, and dual citizenship. Even if you believe President Obama’s birth certificate and Social Security number are genuine — Taitz does not — you still haven’t settled the problem of dual citizenship, she says. Obama’s father wasn’t an American citizen, therefore, she claims, Obama was also a British citizen at birth, and a Kenyan citizen at age 2. “There has been no decision by a court about whether someone who was a dual citizen at birth, and has split allegiance, is eligible” to be president, Taitz says. And that goes for Ted Cruz. Renounce his Canadian citizenship? So what? “How did he gain his American citizenship? He wasn’t born in the United States of America… He inherited his citizenship from his mother. But at the same time his father was a citizen of Cuba.”

Further, she asks, “If you renounce your foreign citizenship, is it enough?” She floats the idea of a Muslim Brotherhood member born in the U.S. with dual citizenship in a place like Iraq, who traveled to Iraq for some time and then came back the U.S. and renounced his Iraqi citizenship. Would that be good enough?