The meaning of natural-born citizneship was gone over with a fine-tooth comb with Obama. I was in law school at the time and all the research and conclusions seemed to arrive at one being a natural-born citizen if one of the parents was an American citizen. The Cato Institute agrees. I don’t like citing authorities per se as the reason one argument is right and one is wrong, but Cato is authoritative and cites the Nationality Act of 1940.
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/yes-ted-cruz-can-be-president
The finer point of “naturalized” vs. “natural-born” when it comes to those born to an American citizen on foreign soil doesn’t appear to be dispositive and is certainly not a clear issue. I found nothing determinative in my research to conclude that the constitutional intent was to exclude foreign-born children of say an American diplomat. It would seem there would have been cases and controversies back then clarifying the issue if such was the case.
So the Cato Institute completely ignores Justice Scalia?
Natural born had a totally different context in 1780. Of course the founders didn’t want people born overseas to be president.
And if Cruz had been a dual citizen of Mexico until 2014 no one here would back him either.