Ref: “Any idiot, including me, knew this when pregnant abroad. My son had his USA BC within days of his birth overseas. ....If he were asked to show ID papers any time from birth to 16, he only had Canadian.....”
Not sure of the time frame and where your son was born...But I can talk about the Canadian issue a bit as my parents went through it with me. The USA BC was not available in the early 1960’s and 70’s, and Cruz would have fallen under the same foreign birth documentation requirements that I did. I was born on Harmon AFB in Newfoundland, Canada in the early 1960’s. I was issued a Canadian Birth Certificate from the Canadian government, and a Certificate of Live Foreign Birth when I was @20 months old to document my Natural Born Citizenship, after my Dad was reassigned to March AFB in California.
Cruz was born out in the Western Alberta Territory. Cruz’s parents, working for a civilian oil company the early 1970’s, probably did not have the family and legal support the military offers its members. As there were minimal legal/immigration requirements for them to reenter the US from Canada, the US documentation of his birth was probably not his mom’s biggest priority — especially if she could get him registered to school with only her passport, Texas driver’s license, and his birth certificate. .... Keep in mind that this probably coincided with the time his parents were separated, so his mom was probably focused on other problems...
But anyway, the law is very clear. If you are a Natural Born Citizen, you are a Natural Born Citizen. When one obtains the documents for it has no impact on the citizenship status and its entitlements.
Bill, you make good points about the paperwork and awareness.
This could explain why she applied for the crba later on, when Ted needed a passport to go overseas for a high school competition.