[Tau Food]

Recently, there has been a lot of research by a lot of people into the proper meaning to be given to the term "natural born citizen." A relatively small group with an affinity for European legal theory got themselves all tangled up in an 18th century French book written by a Swiss fellow who didn't live long enough to ever even hear of the United States of American or its Constitution. That adventure led this small group of students to opine that perhaps it might be best if we begin to require that all of our presidents be born in the United States to two parents who are both citizens of the U.S. at the time of the child's birth. That rule, the European rule, has failed to convince many folks on this side of the Atlantic. In contrast, the American rule deems anyone who is a citizen at or by birth to be a "natural born citizen."

In the United States, the current consensus favors the American rule over the European rule and under the American rule, Ted Cruz is clearly a "natural born citizen" because he was a citizen upon his birth to a mother who was a citizen of the United States.

[txrangerette]

Precisely.

Imagine this scenario:

Along the US-Mexico border, in a location where hundreds even thousands of people per day cross back and forth to do business, visit friends and relatives, attend social engagements etc, along comes a pregnant woman who crosses from the US into Mexico that day and intends to come right back across into the US after a few hours. She is fully an AMERICAN citizen, by birth. But while on the Mexican side she goes into labor and gives birth before getting back to America.

After she gets back home with her baby, does the baby have to later become naturalized because he was born the day his mom visited across the border?

IOW, is the baby a foreigner? Until naturalized later? Or is the baby a citizen, but unqualified to run for President because his mom went into labor and gave birth while on Mexican soil?

Or, as my POV contends, is that baby a natural born citizen of the United States?

Under American law, not old European law, what is he?

Red Steel? What is that baby, born to an American citizen mother, who was not on American soil when the baby decided to be born??

If we agree that he is American and not Mexican, why is that?

And if those who take the view that under American law, natural born is the opposite of naturalized (and I will let THEM debate my side - they’re more qualified) are correct about that, then later the baby CAN run for President.

[DiogenesLamp]

In contrast, the American rule deems anyone who is a citizen at or by birth to be a "natural born citizen."

Bellei was a "citizen at birth" but he wasn't a "natural born citizen." Natural born citizens don't get stripped of their citizenship for failing to meet the conditions of a naturalization law which granted them their citizenship.

In the United States, the current consensus favors the American rule over the European rule and under the American rule, Ted Cruz is clearly a "natural born citizen" because he was a citizen upon his birth to a mother who was a citizen of the United States.

If his mother had been 14 years old when he was born, he wouldn't be an American citizen at all.

So tell me, how is "Natural born" American citizenship defined by your mother's age? (And how long she and you reside in the United States?)