Acquisition of citizenship
Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."
Birth abroad to one United States citizen
..... Different rules apply for persons born abroad to one U.S. citizen before November 14, 1986. United States law on this subject changed multiple times throughout the twentieth century, and the law is applicable as it existed at the time of the individual's birth.
For persons born between December 24, 1952 and November 14, 1986, a person is a U.S. citizen if all of the following are true:
1. The person's parents were married at the time of birth
2. One of the person's parents was a U.S. citizen when the person was born
3. The citizen parent lived at least ten years in the United States before the child's birth;
4. A minimum of 5 of these 10 years in the United States were after the citizen parent's 14th birthday.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_nationality_law
1. Ted Cruz's parents, Rafael Bienvenido Cruz and Eleanor Elizabeth (Darragh) Wilson were married.
2. His mother, Eleanor Elizabeth (Darragh) Wilson, was born in Wilmington, Delaware.
3. Eleanor had lived in the US for more than 10 years before going to Canada.
4. Five of those 10 years were after her 14th birthday - she earned an undergraduate degree in mathematics from Rice University in the 1950's.
Ted Cruz was born on December 22, 1970 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, during his parents 8 year stay in Canada.
Rafael Cruz was born in Cuba and obtained political asylum in the United States. After his four-year student visa expired, he became a Canadian citizen while working in Canada. He later became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2005.
The Cruz family moved to Texas in 1974.
"Genuineoriginal" can "... deny that the Congress of the United States ever had the power, or color of power to say that any man born within the jurisdiction of the United States, not owing a foreign allegiance, is not and shall not be a citizen of the United States. Citizenship is his birthright and neither the Congress nor the States can justly or lawfully take it from him," but the Congress would care to differ.
The term “natural born citizen” refers to a citizen, who from birth, was not required to go through naturalization proceedings.
The US Supreme Court has long recognized that two particularly useful sources in understanding constitutional terms are:
1. British common law - during the 1700's, children born outside of the British Empire to subjects of the Crown were subjects themselves and explicitly used “natural born” to encompass such children.
2. the First Congress - 3 years after the drafting of the Constitution, the 1st Congress established that children born abroad to U.S. citizens were U.S. citizens at birth, and explicitly recognized that such children were “natural born citizens.”