According to Lee, two legal theories of citizenship were popular at the time the Constitution was ratified: jus soli (Latin for "law of the land), which held that a child's citizenship flowed from the actual, physical place of his birth, and jus sanguinis ("law of the blood"), which held that parents passed their citizenship to their children. However, Lee argues, at the time the Constitution was ratified, jus sanguinis applied only to patrilineal descent.
"However odious it seems today, a child born of a woman whose citizenship was different from her husband's—much rarer then than today—could not be a 'natural born Citizen' of the mother's country. That idea wasn't even considered until 1844 in Victorian England."
Mary Brigid McManamon, a constitutional law professor at Widener University, made a similar argument in The Washington Post Tuesday. "In this election cycle, numerous pundits have declared that Cruz is eligible to be president," she writes. "They rely on a supposed consensus among legal experts. This notion appears to emanate largely from a recent comment in the Harvard Law Review Forum by former Solicitors General Neal Katyal and Paul Clement. In trying to put the question of who is a natural-born citizen to rest, however, the authors misunderstand, misapply and ignore the relevant law."
The law Katyal and Clement are ignoring, McManamon argues, is 18th-century English common law, which the Supreme Court has said is a necessary lens for understanding the founders' understanding of the Constitution—a fact that Katyal, Clement and McManamon agree on.
English common law was "unequivocal" on the subject, McManamon says: "Natural-born subjects had to be born in English territory." Katyal and Clement, rather than relying on common law, turn for their interpretation to a trio of 18th-century British statutes that were "a revolutionary departure" from the common law, McManamon argues.
http://www.newsweek.com/ted-cruz-canadian-citizen-415430
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