[skeeter]

OK, thanks. I perused your response - I'd have to read the entire case to understand its relevance to the question of presidential eligibility, a few paragraphs won't do. I'm sure the context of this and all the other case law experts might think would apply would be important to understand, as well.

Frankly I don't know if I have the attention span, and better minds than mine can't decide either so I don't feel too bad.

Its a shame we'd wrap ourselves around the axle on this deal when the POS in the white house was just given an eight year free ride to rape and pillage. Just another reasons to be as p*sssed off as I am.

[Cboldt]

The case doesn't have any relevance to presidential eligibility. Bellei was stripped of his citizenship because the statute that gave it required him to obtain a certain amount of residence in the US. He didn't obtain that residence time and had his US citizenship stripped.

The majority held that the statute, more particularly the residence requirement to the new citizen, was constitutional. The dissent said that part of the statute as unconstitutional.

Both sides say that a citizen at birth born abroad is naturalized. The majority said (roughly) they weren't naturalized in the US because citizenship attached at birth, and they were born abroad. This detail takes a citizenship out of the 14th amendment's "naturalized in the US" language. The dissent said naturalization happened in the US (a legal fiction), so the citizenship could not be stripped.

"Naturalized" and "natural born" are mutually exclusive.

Cruz's citizenship depends on a statute. Take away the statute, he isn't a citizen. The popular frame of analysis is to view a "natural born" vs. "naturalized" dichotomy. The law doesn't analyze that way. The law uses "citizen solely by statute" vs. "citizen without resort to statute" dichotomy. Only the "citizen without resort to statute" is a NBC.