These 6 current US senators were born outside the country

Unlike the president and vice president, US senators do not need to be natural-born citizens in order to take office.

Six current senators were born outside the US, bringing the total number throughout history to 74, according to the US Senate Historical Office. Many were US citizens at birth despite being born in another country — for instance, because they were born to American parents working in government positions abroad.

One of the best-known foreign-born senators who became a naturalized US citizen was former New York Sen. Robert Wagner. He was born in Germany and introduced and championed the Wagner Act, a landmark 1935 labor law that protects many private-sector workers' right to organize and bargain collectively.

Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democrat representing Colorado, was born in New Delhi while his father, Douglas Bennet, was working for the US State Department. He got US citizenship at birth.

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In the late '90s, Sen. Bennet moved to Denver to become a director of Anschutz Investment Company, where he guided businesses as they reorganized under bankruptcy orders and restructured debt.

Sen. Bennet ran for president in 2020 and is known for writing legislation to train veterans in energy and cybersecurity fields, helping craft the 2014 and 2018 Farm Bills — the latter removed federal restrictions on hemp cultivation — and helping overhaul the No Child Left Behind law.

Sen. Cruz was born in Calgary to a father from Cuba and a mother from Wilmington, Delaware, and grew up in Houston. He had Canadian and US citizenship at birth.

He later earned his Bachelor of Arts from Princeton University in 1992 and his Juris Doctor from Harvard University in 1995.

Sen. Cruz was elected to the Senate in 2012 and took office the following year. In 2014, he formally renounced his Canadian citizenship amid speculation about his eligibility to run for president, a race he lost in 2016.

In 2018, Sen. Cruz helped pass a bipartisan bill that requires the review, declassification, and release of government records related to unsolved criminal civil rights cases.

Born in Bangkok to an American father and a Thai mother, Sen. Duckworth had US citizenship at birth. Her father served in the US military and later worked for the United Nations, so the family moved frequently throughout Southeast Asia before settling in Hawaii.