There are several problems here. First, the Supreme Court did take up a very closely related set of questions in a 1971 case. (That would be the year after Cruz was born.) In that case — Rogers v. Bellei — involved a man born in Italy to an Italian father and a U.S. citizen mother and deemed a natural-born U.S. citizen. The man obtained a passport as a child, traveled to the United States many times and even registered with Selective Service when required (making himself available in the event of a U.S. military draft). But the man never met a requirement that those with dual citizenship live inside the United States for at least five years by the age of 28. American officials warned Aldo Bellei about this requirement several times, including the last time he renewed his U.S. passport. He didn’t meet it. His citizenship was revoked. He sued the then Nixon administration’s secretary of state, William P. Rogers. A lower court ruled in Bellei’s favor. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against him. Bellei’s days as a U.S. citizen were no more.
Now, the Cruz campaign made the case to The Fix that Rogers v. Bellei defined the term “natural-born citizen.” To this, we have to say, not quite. But it’s pretty easy to see that, at least by the standard identified by the Supreme Court in Rogers v. Bellei, Cruz has been a natural-born citizen since birth and has more than met the requirements to sustain that in ways that Bellei did not.
Thanks for the laugh.