I regret that my previous posts are not sufficient to address your objections, but you aren't giving me much of a clue how to help clear it up for you. I leave it to the reader to decide for themselves.
In summary then, the law is clear, and Justice Thomas is reading it exactly right in
Zivotofsky (2015). The binary categories (i.e., mutually exclusive) are NOT statute versus NBC, but citizen at birth versus naturalized. And it is no misstep by Thomas; it is an integral part of a larger argument about the separation of powers, passports being more under the Executive and consular reports of birth abroad (CRBAs) being more under Congress:
Unlike passports, these reports were developed to effectuate the naturalization laws, and they continue to serve the role of identifying persons who need not be naturalized to obtain U. S. citizenship. The regulation of these reports does not fall within the President’s foreign affairs powers, but within Congress’ enumerated powers under the Naturalization and Necessary and Proper Clauses. (emphasis added)
Note the careful logic. CRBAs put into effect the naturalization laws, which are in turn an expression, among other things, of the Congressional power to legislate regarding naturalization. But what do they do?
They do not naturalize! They rather identify persons who do not
need naturalization, i.e., those born naturally into their citizenship. Yet all this happens in a naturalization statute,
as it must.
Think about it. What statutory scheme is unable to identify those objects or persons that are exempt from certain of it's provisions? It is a natural and necessary power of any legislative act, that it must be able to identify the scope of it's own operation, else we would have a chaotic forest of contradictory universal laws with no way to set boundaries. It is truly ludicrous, an unthinkable condition.
Again, I ask the reader to consider, if Thomas was so far off the mark that he couldn't speak effectively concerning the proper boundaries of the executive and congressional powers as manifested in the naturalization statutes, would he not have been censured by his fellow justices? Yet not one ounce of disagreement on this point, that naturalization only happens to those who are NOT born citizens. They are silent because he is right, and has the agreement of numerous witnesses to this truth, including recent case law, the Foreign Affairs Manual, and the explicit wording of the Naturalization Statute itself, in section 1100.
But if you stumble over the fact that Thomas is drawing his inference from a statute that does not specifically use the term "natural born," I have some sympathy for your confusion. The law has some odd creatures in it, things that sensible folks would never suspect were there unless they had been through the grinder of law school. In general, these creatures come into being because the law prefers to operate on substance as being more important than labels.
For example, I can say I have a contract with someone, and try to enforce it, but the law will not recognize it unless the substance of contract is proved by evidence of a meeting of the minds, agreement on terms, etc. Conversely, I may deny I am in a contract, and have not labeled it as such, but the law will find a contract anyway, if I have acted in substance as if there was a contract, i.e., I gave my promise to pay for a service, the service was provided, and the implied terms were agreed on by all parties. There are many other examples as well. Constructive trusts.
The point is, the law will find the thing it is looking for, even if the label is missing, if the substance is there. If a person does not need to be naturalized, but was born a citizen, the absence from the statute of a specific term of art will not dislodge the claim of justice where the substance is present. Cruz would win any such contest hands down. He is NBC head to toe.
Peace,
SR