I have read 90. Your opinion appears to be that Bellei, although his citizenship was stripped, could be/is NBC.
Which is absurd.
Right?
Rule: The Constitution distinguishes between a “naturalized” citizen (Art I, Sec 8, Cl 4) and a “natural born citizen” (NBC) (Art II, Sec I, Cl 5). A “naturalized citizen” is not the same thing as an NBC. By definition an NBC doesn’t have to be “naturalized” as a citizen because he is automatically a citizen upon birth.
So there’s some vagueness and ambiguity in the Constitution about this. Obviously Congress cannot “naturalize” an NBC. However, since the Constitution does not define NBC, Congress and/or the courts need to.
Right?
Argument: Nevertheless, Congress HAS legislated that an NBC MAY be in some cases born on foreign soil. Congress has NEVER legislated that an NBC may NOT be born on foreign soil. And for the above reasons, the naturalization statute in Bellei may not apply when the issue is NBC.
That still reasonably leaves open the issue whether an NBC may be born on foreign soil. And again, IMO, either Congress needs to expressly clarify whether an NBC may be born on foreign soil and/or the courts need to tackle individual NBC cases of this sort.
Additional about Bellei: Bellei did not specifically address the issue of his NBC but one can probably infer that he was not an NBC if he was ruled to not be a U.S. citizen.