[Campion]

There’s no legal category of citizenship called “naturalized at birth but not natural born”. It doesn’t exist. Cruz is absolutely eligible.

[Behind the Blue Wall]

There’s no legal category of citizenship called “naturalized at birth but not natural born”.

Yes, there is. If you derive your citizenship by reference to a naturalization statute, then you are naturalized, not natural born. If you derive your citizenship by virtue not of a statute, but common law understandings of how citizenship is determined, then you are a natural born citizen.

For example, if someone is born in the U.S., what statute determines whether they are a citizen or not?

[Political Junkie Too]

There's no legal category of citizenship called "naturalized at birth but not natural born". It doesn't exist.

It does exist if you think about as a qualification for President and not a category of citizenship.

My theory is that the natural born clause in Article II is not intended as a definition of a type of citizen, as that would belong in Article I section 8. Instead, it is a only a qualification for the office, along with the age and residency qualification. This is a tighter requirement than simply citizen or naturalized citizen, just like citizen at least 35 years old is a tighter requiremeet than just citizen. So, natural born is an understood requirement for office, not a Constitutional definition of who is a citizen.

We don't argue whether "citizen over age 35" is a category of citizenship the way we argue over "citizen natural born."

What if Article II Section 1 were instead written

"No person except a Citizen of the United States shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not be natural born, have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States."

Would this make a difference?

-PJ

[Mollypitcher1]

Natural Born is clearly defined in The Law of Nations. There was no reason to define it.