It turns out I have nothing after all. (That’s one reason I held off—to get more facts and insights.) But despite the anticlimax, I’ll delineate what piqued my interest.
In a nutshell, I looked into the Canadian Citizenship Act of 1947, and couldn’t find birthright citizenship in it. This surmise seemed born out by the Birthright Citizenship Act of 1976. I.e.: if they’d already bestowed birthright citizenship in ‘47, why would they need to do a redundant and repetitious act in ‘76?
If that surmise/conclusion was correct, then it could only mean that Cruz got his citizenship via a parent. Since Rafael Sr hadn’t lived there five years, it would have had to come through his mother. She could have naturalized in one year, providing she’d attained British citizenship during her stay in England.
It turns out, however, that lawyers who work directly in this field claim the ‘47 Act does specify birthright citizenship. I find that hard to believe since 1, I didn’t see it spelled out in the Act, and 2, then why DID they feel the need to do again in ‘76 what they’d already done in ‘47?
Nevertheless lawyers who do this work for a living say they’re right and I’m wrong. So as I said, nothing after all.
born = borne