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Very funny. /sarc

The definition of Natural born Citizen was carved in stone by the Supreme Court in 1875.

Read on for details but I will give you a hint: neither Ted Cruz, Richard J. Santorum, nor Marco Rubio qualify.

But first an explanation of citizenship.

Three types of citizenship are recognized by our government: native born; naturalized; and citizen-by-statute (derived citizenship from parents). All have equal rights. All can serve in Congress, either as a Representative in the House, or as a Senator in the Senate.

The following link will take you to the government’s own Immigration Service web page describing the three types of citizenship.
http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.eb1d4c2a3e5b9ac89243c6a7543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=a2ec6811264a3210VgnVCM100000b92ca60aRCRD&vgnextchannel=a2ec6811264a3210VgnVCM100000b92ca60aRCRD

Natural born Citizen is NOT a type of statutory citizenship. Natural born is ONLY an eligibility requirement for the U.S. Presidency per Article II, Section 1, clause 5, of the U.S. Constitution, and requires, as per the Founders, the President to be born in the United States (jus solis) AND of two citizen parents (jus sanguinas).

The definition of natural born Citizen appears in the holding of SCOTUS’s unanimous decision of Minor v. Happersett (1874).

Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1875), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the Constitution did not grant women the right to vote...

The Minor v. Happersett ruling was based on an interpretation of the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court readily accepted that Minor was a citizen of the United States, but it held that the constitutionally protected privileges of citizenship did not include the right to vote.

SCOTUS rejected Minor’s argument that she was a citizen under the 14th Amendment of the U.S.Constitution, and examined her eligibility, concluding that she belonged to the class of citizens who, being born in the U.S. of citizen parents, was a natural born Citizen, and not covered by the 14th Amendment. This holding has been used in 25 consequent SCOTUS decisions since 1875.

No one has the RIGHT to be President.

The eligibility requirement of Natural Born Citizenship (jus solis + jus sanguinas: born in the U.S. of U.S. citizen parents) must be viewed as a means to prevent split allegiance for any President of the United States.

The following is often used to support people like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio who seek to be President, but it was superceded centuries ago and is a false argument.

“The First U.S. Congress included in the 1790 Immigration & Naturalization Act language to alert the State Department to the fact that Americans born abroad are “natural born” citizens” and are not to be viewed as foreigners due to foreign birth. They were not granted citizenship via that US statute rather citizenship was stated as a fact that must be recognized by immigration authorities. These children were not citizens by any other means than natural law, according to Congress, and statutory law was written to insure that their natural citizenship was recognized.”

This was later scrubbed from consequent directives as this is not a reasonable explanation. It fails to recognize that Congress only has powers over naturalization and has no power to define “natural born Citizen”, which has nothing to do with naturalization. Furthermore, if Congress wants to tell the State Department something, they don’t have to enact legislation to do it.

But more important is that all of the following naturalization acts, 1795, 1802, etc., were also passed to naturalize the children of U.S. citizens born abroad. And the words “natural born” were repealed in the 1795 Naturalization Act and never returned again.