Sorry, but you are ABSOLUTELY AND CATEGORICALLY WRONG.
Persons born to US citizens abroad are United States citizens AT BIRTH, and before any documentation of the fact is ever issued. Just like persons born in the United States are citizens AT BIRTH and before they receive official documentation in the form of a birth certificate.
“Persons born to US citizens abroad are United States citizens AT BIRTH, and before any documentation of the fact is ever issued.”
You appear to have missed that bit in the statute about the residency requirements needing to be met for the US citizen parent.
If Cruz’s mom had been age 18 at his birth (like Barry’s) instead of age 27 (IIRC), Cruz would NOT have been a statutory citizen at birth due to his mom failing the residency requirement of 5 years US residency after age 14 that was in effect at the time of his birth.
Birth Certificates are an invention of the 20th Century. Prior to that, births were “registered” in a registry book either in the local church or in a government office. In England, this registration was done by the government beginning in 1837, prior to that local parishes maintained their own birth registries. Government registration of births in the U.S. was not common practice until after 1900. Many churches maintained birth registries, but it was not mandatory and varied by denomination. The Family Bible was the usual form of recording births in this country.
So, a birth certificate would have been unknown to the framers of the Constitution. You were either a natural born citizen or you were not and they would have thought it bizarre that someone would have to produce a piece of paper to establish that fact. Your family and your neighbors would know the truth of it and you could never hope to gain the support of Presidential electors unless the responsible citizens of your state attested to your Constitutional eligibility. If you were born abroad of an American parent, that fact would be well known.
Naturalized citizens, on the other hand, were required to sign a loyalty oath as a condition of citizenship and that document served as proof of your naturalization. Such documents were required to be recorded at the Courthouse. The only time that a birth was recorded at the Courthouse was when a birth became a cause for examination by the Bastardy Court held to determine parentage.
I find it comical that people are using a 20th Century construct to argue over the original Constitutional intent of the Natural Citizen Clause. Natural Born Citizens don’t need No Stinkin’ Documents, at least in the minds of the founding fathers.
Since the framers did not choose to define the term within the Constitution itself, only the Supreme Court can interpret its meaning as it specifically applies to Presidential eligibility, something they have yet to do. I doubt they ever will.