Mr. Speaker. today I have Introduced legislation which would allow certain naturalized U.S. citizens to hold the offices of U.S. President and Vice President by amending article II of the U.S. Constitution. In the spirit of the 200th anniversary of our Constitution. which we celebrated not too long ago. I believe it is appropriate to amend the Constitution to make naturalized citizens eligible to become President. When the Constitution was drafted in 1787. we had good reasons for excluding naturalized citizens from serving as President. Having recently fought a war with the British. the Framers wanted to ensure that the leaders of the Nation would be free from the taint of Tory ideas. However. our Nation has significantly grown and prospered since those early. fragile days. We no longer need to exclude nonnatives from the Presidency out of a fear of "foreign" Ideas from a foreignborn President. As Americans. we have always taken pride In our heritage from abroad. we are a nation of immigrants. A fitting and lasting tribute to that heritage would be to remove this outdated restriction on public service. I ask my colleagues to join me in this effort by cosponsoring the resolution I have introduced today.
Keywords matched
immigrants naturalized