Cruz was born a Canadian and U.S. citizen. He can not be a natural born citizen of both, or the clause would not have been put in the Constitution. Which country is he a natural born citizen of ?
A Cuban citizen too, I think.
Fortunately, he can be, just as Trump is. Each country makes up its own rules about who is or is not a citizen. The US can't allow itself to be whipsawed by other countries' laws.
Remember, it's the same with Trump. He's a national by virtue of the circumstances of his birth of both the United States and Great Britain. But as Americans we can't concern ourselves with what Canada or Great Britain do or we will forever be at their mercy.
“He can not be a natural born citizen of both, or the clause would not have been put in the Constitution.”
Actually, he can. There was a case in the 1840s involving inheritance, and an English woman who had only lived in the USA for a short time as an infant, but of two British subject parents. The courts found that while she was British, she was also an American NBC and qualified to be President:
“And the constitution itself contains a direct recognition of the subsisting common law principle, in the section which defines the qualification of the President. “No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of this constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President,” &c. The only standard which then existed, of a natural born citizen, was the rule of the common law, and no different standard has been adopted since. Suppose a person should be elected President who was native born, but of alien parents, could there be any reasonable doubt that he was eligible under the constitution? I think not.”
http://tesibria.typepad.com/whats_your_evidence/Lynch_v_Clarke_1844_ocr.pdf
The goal was not to prevent any taint of foreign influence on a person, but to prevent someone from coming from Europe and taking over. They had debated the requirements for becoming a Senator or Representative, and some had wanted to require they be born citizens. In the end, they settled for naturalized with a residency requirement for Congress.
For President, a higher standard was required. No naturalized citizen can become President (except thru the grandfather clause, which died out a long time ago).
The letter from John Jay, which first raised NBC as a possible requirement for the Presidency said:
” Permit me to hint, whether it would not be wise & seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government; and to declare expressly that the Command in chief of the american army shall not be given to, nor devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen.” Note the purpose: “to provide a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government”.
Justice Story, writing in the 1830s, said “ It is indispensable, too, that the president should be a natural born citizen of the United States... [T]he general propriety of the exclusion of foreigners, in common cases, will scarcely bedoubted by any sound statesman. It cuts off all chances for ambitious foreigners, who mightotherwise be intriguing for the office; and interposes a barrier against those corrupt interferences of foreign governments in executive elections, which have inflicted the mostserious evils upon the elective monarchies of Europe.”
So while naturalized citizens could become members of Congress, the President cannot. But as it was put in Minor:
“Additions might always be made to the citizenship of the United States in two ways: first, by birth, and second, by naturalization. This is apparent from the Constitution itself, for it provides that
“No person except a natural-born citizen or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution shall be eligible to the office of President,
and that Congress shall have power “to establish a uniform rule of naturalization.” Thus, new citizens may be born or they may be created by naturalization.”
In Elk, 1884, the US Supreme Court said, “This section contemplates two sources of citizenship, and two sources only: birth and naturalization.”
There are two ways to become a citizen of the US: birth or naturalization. Those naturalized cannot become President. Those born to it can.
It is an extremely imperfect rule. Hillary Clinton was born in the USA to two citizen parents, as was Bill Ayers and the Rev Wright. There is no certainty that such a person will be loyal.
But there you have it. Naturalized citizens cannot become President, with the goal of preventing foreign influence. Those born citizens can. And it has always been possible for a person to be born a citizen of two countries, since countries have very different rules of citizenship.
The child of a Swiss mother and French father, born in the US while they are students, is a natural born citizen of the USA AND is born a Swiss citizen - so a ‘natural born citizen’ of both. It would then be up to the voters of America to decide if they could trust that person with the Presidency.