The problem is that in modern parlance, naturalization has come to be understood not as the legislatively conferred citizenship but as a process of acquiring citizenship. Cruz, McCain and George Romney did not have to go through any process to acquire their citizenship; Congress conferred that citizenship automatically by statute. These are not the only examples, however, of automatic naturalization by statute without any process or request. For example, United States citizenship was statutory conferred on all Native Americans living within the United States by the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, even though some tribes actually objected, then as now.Man, it's like this Constitutional law prof has been reading my posts here. :)
Thus, naturalization as a term seems to have two very different meanings: (1) legislatively conferred citizenship either automatically or pursuant to some process, and (2) the more recent understanding, the process for acquiring citizenship where Congress has prescribed such a process. The Constitution appears to adopt the former reading on the issue of presidential eligibility, however much modern language usage employs the latter. In his recent comments on whether he is a "natural born" citizen, Sen. Ted Cruz appears to confuse or obfuscate these two. U.S. News & World Report
BTW, what other "point of view" did you have in mind?
I think that’s the divide. It’s actually more than mere usage. The second is the definition embodied in the statutes.
Constitutionally, it’s more problematic, but it’s an open question.
None of the case law I have read involves anyone with an unqualified citizenship conferred at birth, so they are not entirely on point. All of them involve some sort of condition or qualification that was not met by the appellee; some a before-the-fact qualification that had not been met; at least one an after-the-fact conditionality that had not been fulfilled, but none of them involved a straight-up unqualified, unconditional grant of citizenship at birth later that was later denied or revoked. In other words, in every case the Court gave effect to Congressional will, as the courts should, unless the Constitution is contravened.