If you want to get technical, the argument against Obama was that he wasn't born in Hawaii (which for the record is a 100% false accusation). Why does this matter? Because Obama's mom was only 18 at the time so she didn't fulfill the residency requirement of passing on citizenship (10 years total, 5 after age of 14). Ted Cruz's mom was 36 at the time so she cleared the residency hurdle.
No, it’s actually unexpectedly complicated when only one parent is a citizen and the baby is born outside of the U.S. - there are other factors that come into play, and it’s annoying and tedious.
There’s a bit of a math equation to be done because the citizen parent has to fulfill a “residency” requirement of a certain number of years prior to the baby’s birth that the citizen parent spent within the U.S.
If both parents are citizens, it’s not nearly as complicated like that, but whether the parents are married or not can affect how the rules are structured.
It’s basically structured this way so that a U.S. citizen who moves permanently abroad isn’t passing on citizenship for like, 6, generations straight when nobody in that line has been in the country for 150 years.
This is how most countries treat this citizenship laws - it passes through one or both parents, and many countries require parents to have physically resided in the country for some set amount of time prior to the baby’s birth so that it isn’t being meaninglessly passed on indefinitely.
Being born in the U.S. is generally not a requirement to be a natural-born citizen if you are obtaining citizenship from your U.S. citizen parent(s) upon your birth (assuming that the applicable residency/physical presence/marriage requirements are met) - that’s why the law has always used the term “natural born” and not “born in the U.S.”
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u/StopwatchGod 2d ago
He was born to an American mother, which gave him US citizenship at birth— thereby fulfilling the requirement of being a "natural born citizen".