Then I would think that a strong argument could be made that the temporary nature of the work assignment would mean that he was still in complete allegiance to the United States and his child was, therefore, a NBC.
I don’t really care about a “strong argument” in this case. I’m talking about the black-and-white standard that you used in your initial post regarding “soil before blood.”
Except that Cruz's mom stayed on in Canada for a few years after the divorce.
Accept it. The more we learn, the worse it looks for Cruz. If Cruz's situation were to be okay, we'd be opening ourselves to a whole lot of people without allegiance to the US being eligible, because of their circumstance being like Cruz's.
What a shame he gave up his Canadian citizenship. Perhaps Cruz would've been eligible for highest office there.