Cruz is a brilliant lawyer. I have no doubts that he knows that he qualifies.
Under the British doctrine of jus sanguinis, citizenship passes from one or both parents to a child, regardless of the birthplace.
The First Congress adopted this principle as law when it enacted the Naturalization Act of 1790, which declared that “the children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond the sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens.” Though the 1790 law was superseded by subsequent naturalization laws as well as the Fourteenth Amendment, the principle of jus sanguinis remains central to understanding who is a natural born citizen.
Further, 8 U.S. Code § 1401(g) extends citizenship to children who are born outside the United States or its territories, provided that one parent is a U.S. citizen who “prior to the birth of such person, was physically present in the United States … for a period or periods totaling not less than five years.”
By comparison, a naturalized citizen is a person, born in a foreign country to parents who are not U.S. citizens, who seeks to become an American citizen.
Attempting to end this debate, in 2008, the Senate unanimously passed a resolution stating that John McCain, who was born on a U.S. military base in the Panama Canal Zone, was a natural-born citizen and eligible to become president. The resolution explained there was “no evidence of the intention of the Framers or any Congress to limit the constitutional rights of children born to Americans serving in the military” and that previous presidential candidates (such as Barry Goldwater, born in Arizona before it received statehood and George Romney, born to U.S. citizen parents in Mexico) were “understood to be eligible to be president.”
The basic rule of common law was was jus soli, not jus sanguinis. Jus sanguinis, much as in the later US, was gradually incorporated by statute.
Don’t care what Congress does, it cannot change by law the meaning of the term natural born citizen in the Constitution.
Though it was arguably changed by the 14th Amendment.