>>>”Clearly not natural born.”
There’s not three categories of citizens, only two. You’re either a natural born citizen or naturalized. Cruz isn’t naturalized.
He’s either not a citizen or natural born citizen.
Cruz is only a citizen by Act of Congress. Naturalized means made a citizen by statute because birth alone is not enough. Clearly Cruz was naturalized at birth because Congress allows this by statute. There is only one citizenship that does not require “clarification” by law. Born on the soil, of two citizen parents.
There is precedent along those lines too, at least seeing only two types of citizenship under the 14th amendment. It is a common parlor trick to quote just this part of the case, "the constitution contemplates two sources of citizenship, and two only: birth and naturalization," and then conclude that Cruz is NBC.
But, the case says more.
The Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, in the declaration thatall persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside,contemplates two sources of citizenship, and two only: birth and naturalization. Citizenship by naturalization can only be acquired by naturalization under the authority and in the forms of law. But citizenship by birth is established by the mere fact of birth under the circumstances defined in the Constitution. Every person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, becomes at once a citizen of the United States, and needs no naturalization. A person born out of the jurisdiction of the United States can only become a citizen by being naturalized, either by treaty, as in the case [p703] of the annexation of foreign territory, or by authority of Congress, exercised either by declaring certain classes of persons to be citizens, as in the enactments conferring citizenship upon foreign-born children of citizens, or ...
Wong Kim Ark, 169 U. S. 649 (1898)
A couple things are apparent in that case law citation. First, citizenship at birth, under the constitution, depends on being born in the US. Unless one takes the "in the US" part of the 14th amendment, and construes it as saying "anywhere in the world." Judges and lawyer engage in this sort of wordplay on a regular basis, so it is safe to say that no law, no constitution, and no precedent means what it says.
Second, the cite recognizes that naturalization can take place by mere declaration of Congress, with one example being conferring citizenship upon foreign-born children of citizens.
There are secondary and tertiary authorities galore, for example the Katyal/Clement article, the CRS monograph, and State Department manuals, that are used to reach the opposite conclusion stated in Wong Kim Ark (the opposite conclusion being that Cruz was not naturalized). Cruz cites this as "weight of legal scholarship" or similar.