General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Ted Cruz is not eligible to be president. [View all]Jim Lane
(11,175 posts)First, any Cruz birther is likely to meet the same roadblock as the Obama birthers did: You can't even get a court to examine birth certificates or to interpret the law, because your challenge gets thrown out for lack of standing.
For my part, I don't think it's a vested right in citizenship. That would imply that some further step is needed. The law could be that such a person has a right to be naturalized without meeting the normal requirements (such as the renunciation of violence to overthrow the government). That isn't what the law says, though. It doesn't require the Cruz types to go through a naturalization proceeding. There's a form that the parents can file with the U.S. embassy or consulate, but it's just for convenience of proof, not a requirement of citizenship.
Thus, I'd say that Cruz, at birth, didn't have a vested right in citizenship; he had citizenship. Obviously, though, some scholars disagree.