Perhaps you did not understand the terminology. A person can possesses a right to possess a tangible or an intangible asset, but that person may then fail to possess that asset by failure to actually secure it and take actual possession of the asset before the asset is lost to the person having the right to possess the asset. The same is true of citizenship in some cases. It is not enough to be born with the right to possess citizenship. A person must act to secure the citizenship and defend its possession. While a natural law can authorize the right, recognition, and exercise of natural born citizenship and an unnatural and artificial statutory law can authorize the right, recognition, and exercise of native and naturalized citizenship; a person must still act to secure the citizenship and defend it against those persons and organizations who would otherwise deny the right of citizenship. Example: even though a person is a natural born citizen, born in the United States with U.S. citizen parents, the Real I.D. law can allow the TSA and the U.S. INS to deny recognition of the U.S. citizenship of persons identifying themselves with a driver’s license identification card from the States of Illinois, Missouri, Texas, Wshington, and perhaps other states. In other words, whether or not you are a person who has a right to claim citizenship at birth or after birth, your right can be denied by the government under certain circumstances, unless you successfully defend the right with other forms of identification acceptable to the government. Consular officers are diplomatic personnel from the Department of State. They have the authority to deny recognition of U.S. citizenship whether or not it was actually a right at birth.
A person can be a citizen, in fact, and some government actor may refuse to acknowledge the fact of citizenship unless suitable evidence is produced.
Let's say that the INS denies recognition of the U.S. citizenship of a person identifying themself with a driver's license identification card from the State of Illinois, Missouri, Texas, Washington, or perhaps some other state. Does that mean that the person is not, in fact, a citizen? Does citizenship depend on the government actor recognizing it?
Then there is the example of "Consular officers are diplomatic personnel from the Department of State. They have the authority to deny recognition of U.S. citizenship whether or not it was actually a right at birth." Is such a denial conclusive, or can it be appealed? Has a State Department or INS denial of certificate of citizenship ever been reversed by a judge? If so, citizenship depends on the circumstances of birth, not on recognition by a consular officer or INS agent.
I find recognition of citizenship-in-fact to be variable. My point is not on the recognition of citizenship, it is on the existence of it.
Kabar asserted that US citizenship flat out doesn't exist until it is recognized. IOW, if Cruz hadn't applied for some Certification of Citizenship, Cruz would not be a citizen of the US - notwithstanding the fact that 8 USC 1401 says Cruz is a US citizen at birth. Kabar says a person can elect, by inaction, to void the operation of 8 USC 1401. You intimated similar, saying one becomes a citizen "But only after securing U.S. diplomatic recognition of the U.S. citizenship."
I have to admit that it is possible for a person to "fly under the radar" and never seek recognition of citizenship (that goes for people born in the US too, say, hypothetically, without a birth certificate), and for practical purposes, their US citizenship is pointless. But should that person have a change of mind at any point in their life, and was able to produce suitable evidence, they could inform the US government and be noticed as a citizen. Were they a citizen before the government noticed?