The Journal

Issue date: 11/8/07 Section: Opinion/Editorial

Stephen Colbert's short-lived candidacy has inspired me to run for president.

Of course, whereas he is a 43-year-old natural-born citizen and host of a popular "news" show, I am a 20-something student born on an island in the Pacific. Sadly, the Constitution of the United States doesn't condone a presidential candidate like me.

Well, it bloody should.

For some reason, in their haste to establish a country free of foreign influence, the Founding Fathers found it necessary to forget that theirs was a nation built by immigrants. They listed prerequisites for becoming president in the Constitution: be at least 35, live in the country for at least the past 14 years and be a natural-born citizen.

Though establishing an age limit and a residency requirement has some logic to it, it seems passé to require someone to be born in the United States, particularly when a 2003 U.S. Census survey established that there were 33.5 million foreign-born people living in the United States. That's a lot of people - more than five times the population of Missouri - who cannot run for president.

Take my case as an example.

My family immigrated to Southern California when I was five. By the time I turn 35, I will have lived in this country for 30 years, more than double the required 14-year residency. By then, I will have been socialized as an American, consuming the hyper-pop culture of Los Angeles and taking part in the political discussions of the nation. I will (hopefully) be working for a newspaper somewhere on the West Coast, and will contribute to the economy by using what I earn to purchase goods and services. Perhaps I will even have some children, a puppy and a nice house.

In short, I will be as American as apple pie - that is, a
foreign transplant completely altered and claimed as one of America's own.

And yet, after all that, I still won't be able to run for president.

It is undemocratic - and perhaps a little xenophobic - to have a system where qualified people cannot be elected to the highest office. This is, of course, not to say that all immigrants are qualified (a certain Governator comes to mind), but the Constitution shouldn't outright ban all immigrants.

At the risk of sounding whiney, the Constitutional requirement is unfair. It is a staid leftover from the Revolutionary era - sort of in the same vein as arbitrarily deciding black slaves were worth three-fifths of a person. Now we know that blacks are worth just as much as whites. But do we know whether immigrants are worth as much as the natural-born?

I know I am.

Perhaps Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who
was born in Canada, explained it best.

"You can't choose where you are born," Granholm said. "But you can choose where you live and where you swear your allegiance."

I've chosen my home and my allegiance. All I ask is for my country to grant me the same rights it grants others.

Let me be president.

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