The Constitution leaves no room for doubt upon this subject. The words "natural-born citizen of the United States" occur in it, and the other provision also occurs in it that "Congress shall have power to pass a uniform system of naturalization." To naturalize a person is to admit him to citizenship. Who are natural-born citizens but those born within the Republic? Those born within the Republic, whether black or white, are citizens by birth -- natural-born citizens. There is not such word as white in your Constitution. Citizenship, therefore, does not depend upon complexion any more than it depends upon the rights of election or of office. All from other lands, who, by the terms of your laws and a compliance with their provisions become naturalized, are adopted citizens of the United States; all other persons born within the Republic, of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty, are natural-born citizens. Gentlemen can find no exception to this statement touching natural-born citizens except what is said in the Constitution in relation to Indians. The reason why that exception was made in the Constitution is apparent to everybody. The several Indian tribes were recognized at the organization of this Government as independent sovereignties. They were treated with as such; and they have been dealt with by the Government ever since as separate sovereignties. Therefore, they were excluded from the general rule.
Hon. John A. Bingham
The Congressional Globe April 11th, 1862, page 1639
The primary issue from my perspective is not the term natural born. It's the empty headed idea that jurisdiction ends at the border or shore.
IMO, A citizen carries with him that jurisdiction in the form of allegiance and of responsibility to the country he/she considers sovereign and home.
If you think of jurisdiction in that way, then a natural born citizen who has a child entirely due to happenstance, in a foreign country, then upon return the child should be considered a natural born or of the same status as the Mother in this case. This was the view in 1790. It is the majority view today, I believe. There are other views and some use the same sources, like Vattel..
I think therefore, that the founders wanted it this way. they wanted some argument for each case, as the goal was a firewall to prevent people of foreign allegiances from abusing our laws and salting the mine with foreign influences when they matured.....
If you think about it critically, the foreign influences could occur in a domestically born child of a foreign national or naturalized citizen, just as easily as a foreign born of a American natural born, and in fact I might argue that the latter is actually less risky.
So I think the ambiguity is quite intentional and has been for 200 years.
Ted Cruz can win this election, but not, in my opinion, by following the course his campaign advisers have plotted for him. It worked for Obama because he is a black liberal democrat. They effectively used "racism" to quell the argument. Ted Cruz does not have that luxury. He needs to try a different tactic.Well written and I couldn't agree more. I could happily support Cruz if he would squarely face this issue by owning it and probing it immediately and completely (all the way to the SCOTUS if need be) in order to settle it once and for all for the good of the country. Of course, if he were to pursue this approach, it would be absolutely critical that he select a running mate of the highest caliber since they might well end up in his place in short order.Embrace the conundrum and signal to the People that once seated as POTUS he will use the influence the Executive Branch of government to formally request clarity be provided by the Judicial Branch of government, whether it works in his favor or not. By showing conservatives that he is willing to face potential impeachment himself in order to protect the sanctity of the Constitution, he will show he is a genuine originalist, and encourage our trust and favor. That will go along with us conservative birthers; and I believe the bulk of us will happily stand down out of respect for the gesture and anticipated final resolution.
As it is now, he recent actions (such as questioning Trump's mother's birth in Scotland in the recent debate) suggest that he is disingenuously trying to "obama-ize" the issue away and that he is a man more interested in furthering his own political ambitions than in serving the country of his birth (well, perhaps not of his birth in his case, but you know what I mean).
The 1971 SCOTUS case of Rogers v. Bellei is a serious problem for Ted Cruz. Here is a snippet of the parts that may spell disaster for the Cruz campaign:
"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 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," (emphasis mine).