Green Card holders need not apply

THE EDITOR: I would like to make the following recommendation to the National Advisory Committee on Constitutional Reform.

The requirement for only citizens and people born in Trinidad and Tobago to be eligible to serve as an elected MP should be amended. The current restriction is not only archaic but prevents us from being able to access the best and genuine people available to make decisions on behalf of the entire country.

The children of diplomats or other people posted abroad who were born there become ineligible to serve this country at the highest level because they are dual citizens by birth. It’s nonsensical to ask anyone to renounce the country of their birth when parents served and contributed to our country, yet these children are considered “undesirables.”

Someone who becomes a dual citizen later in life (by boat) does so by choice, so it is understandable they are obliged to show their allegiance to only TT. People holding Green Cards for another country who aspire to be a MP should also be obliged to make that declaration. As far as I am aware, there are no existing restrictions for anyone holding a Green Card for another country becoming a MP.

Isn’t the application and holding of a Green Card an intent to be a citizen of another country at some stage in the future? Wasn’t the intention of the framers of our constitution that our elected parliamentarians should have allegiance to only TT?

It is dishonest, disrespectful and an unpatriotic act to walk through the hallowed halls and sit in our Parliament, knowingly having half a foot in another country. I vividly recall a newspaper photograph in March 2020 showing a MP preparing to leave on a flight designated for foreign citizens and Green Card holders, just prior to the covid19 closure of Piarco Airport. The absurdity was that that person was able to access re-entry prior to successfully retaining their seat in Parliament.

It is very clear that our founding fathers who wrote our constitution intended to engender patriotism and loyalty for TT from those people wanting to serve in Parliament, hence the reason for the current restriction.

I call upon the advisory committee to restrict the requirements to only those genuine, sincere citizens who willingly want to make a real contribution to TT. Green Card holders need not apply.

R KHAN

San Fernando