I for one have a difficulty on this issue, because it seems so unfair. I can understand why, say, Arnold Schwarzenegger would be ineligible to run for the presidency. But Cruz is the son of an American citizen for goodness’ sake. If Cruz isn’t a natural born citizen, what do we say to the foreign-born children of diplomats or military folks? You serve your country but then your child is a second class citizen because they were born abroad? It makes no sense and you can add children of American missionaries and business people living abroad.
You have to take your like of a candidate out of the equation and so few will do that right now.
Try it this way. Do you want an Arab Prince who is a direct descendant of THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD to be eligible to run for POTUS.
What about a Duke from England? Should he be able to run?
Surely, people can understand that James Madison might not want a Duke of Marlborough to run for POTUS
Military personnel, like ambassadors and diplomats, may leave the country physically, but they never leave it politically because they are *in service* TO it. Their children are natural born.
§ 217. Children born in the armies of the state.
For the same reasons also, children born out of the country, in the armies of the state, or in the house of its minister at a foreign court, are reputed born in the country; for a citizen who is absent with his family, on the service of the state, but still dependent on it, and subject to its jurisdiction, cannot be considered as having quitted its territory.
Law of Nations Or, Principles of the Law of Nature, Applied to the Conduct and Affairs of Nations and Sovereigns, Emmerich de Vattel, Book I, CHAP. XIX.