For a child born abroad to become a U.S. citizen, his or her U.S.- citizen parent must register the birth at a U.S. consulate or embassy soon after the child’s birth.

My children were born in France in 1966 and 1969. A t that time, at least, my children were not automatically citizens. I had to travel to the nearest consulate, in this case Bordeaux, and register each birth. I had to present official papers as listed on the Report of Birth Abroad of a Citizen of the United States of America, which I subsequently received as proof of citizenship for each child. Those papers included each child’s French birth certificate, my U.S. passport and the parents’ marriage book or certificate. Nowhere in any of the official papers proving that my children are U.S. citizens are the words “natural-born citizen” — because they are not, and, as Mary Brigid McManamon legally demonstrated in her Jan. 13 op-ed, “Ted Cruz is not a natural-born citizen,” neither is Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.).

Carol Bouville, Gaithersburg

From 1968 to 1970, I was a U.S. Army officer assigned in Dichtelbach, Germany. My wife, with me on a government-sponsored accompanied tour of duty, gave birth to our daughter in an Army hospital in Bad Kreuznach. According to Mary Brigid McManamon’s Jan. 13 op-ed, my daughter is ineligible to become president.

Tens of thousands of babies were born to the U.S. personnel abroad who defeated the Soviet Union in the Cold War. Are all of them unable to become president? If so, I recommend an immediate constitutional amendment.

Anthony Ambrose, Hershey, Pa.

In deeming Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) ineligible for the presidency, Mary Brigid McManamon simplified a complicated issue. In U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), the most extensive discussion of the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause, the Supreme Court affirmed her point that there are two paths to citizenship — birth and naturalization — and that birthright citizenship requires birth in territory under U.S. jurisdiction. This would seem to make Mr. Cruz ineligible.

But the court also cited the 1790 statute, referred to by Ms. McManamon, naturalizing foreign-born children of U.S. citizens and declaring them to “be considered as natural-born citizens.” The court then noted that in 1802, Congress revoked the phrase about “natural-born” citizens. Ms. McManamon claimed that, whereas Congress can “consider” those born outside the United States natural-born citizens, it does not have the power to make them natural-born.

But the law regularly recognizes legal fictions, such as making a corporation a “person.” For clarity, all Mr. Cruz has to do is get Congress, which he so often obstructs, to pass a bill with language similar to that of the 1790 statute. Mr. Cruz would then have the same legal status as children born in U.S. territory to undocumented immigrants.

Brook Thomas, Irvine, Calif.

Ruth Marcus was correct in her Jan. 10 op-ed, “A rule that is un-American,” that Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) qualifies as a “natural born citizen,” but she overstated her case. This is not a constitutional question but a statutory one.

At the time of Mr. Cruz’s birth, he was subject to the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. Section 301(a)(7) stated that a person born outside the United States who has only one citizen parent was a citizen only if the parent “was physically present in the United States . . . for a period or periods totaling not less than 10 years [before the birth], at least five of which were after attaining the age of fourteen years.” To conclude that Mr. Cruz is eligible to be president, it must be established that his mother had fulfilled the U.S. residency requirement. This is why the relevant Harvard Law Review article stated that “subject to certain residency requirements on the parents, someone born to a U.S. citizen generally becomes a citizen without regard to where the birth takes place.”

The devil often lies in those darn subordinate clauses.

Richard Gordon, Cleveland

The writer is a p rofessor of l aw at

Case Western Reserve University.