Natural Born Citizen

There has been some minor controversy regarding whether or not Ted Cruz is a natural born citizen.  Objections to his natural born status center around his father being Cuban and Cruz himself being born in Canada.  That Cruz's mother was a U.S. citizen is thought insufficient to overcome these objections.  At first consideration these objections seem to carry significant weight.  First, Cruz was not born on U.S. soil and thus does not meet the traditional common law definition of natural born.  Second, his connection to the U.S. is matrilineal rather than patrilineal which again fails to meet the requirements of traditional common law citizenship.  Lastly, while Cruz did not need to be naturalized, his citizenship was obtained by statutory law rather than common law.

Fortunately for Cruz and his supporters the last part is actually not significant.  The statutory law versus common law distinction is no bar to natural born status.  A simple reading of Blackstone clears this up [see here].  Blackstone mentions a statute that included those born abroad as natural born.

To encourage also foreign commerce, it was enacted by statute 25 Edw. III. st. 2. that all children born abroad, provided both their parents were at the time of the birth in allegiance to the king, and the mother had passed the seas by her husband's consent, might inherit as if born in England.  (William Blackstone, Commentaries 1:354, 357, 358, 361, 362)

 An additional statute later amended that rule from both parents to only the father.  Here one might object:  Well, none of this helps Cruz's case; he only had one citizen parent and it wasn't his father.  This is true; however, it has been established that statutory law can confer the rights of being a natural born citizen.  U.S. statutory law also allows citizenship based on one parent, but does not require it to be patrilineal.

The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth: 

 ...  

a person born outside the geographical limits of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is an alien, and the other a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, was physically present in the United States or its outlying possessions for a period or periods totaling not less than five years, at least two of which were after attaining the age of fourteen years. 

(8 U.S. Code § 1401 - Nationals and citizens of United States at birth)

 Thus Cruz obtains natural born status by the same means which England expanded the traditional common law requirement for citizenship: statute.