■"Rejecting the Next Bill Gates," op-ed by Fareed Zakaria, Washington Post, 23 November 2004, p. A29.

One of the reasons why I support letting non-native born Americans run for president is that this country is essentially mongrel in character and will only grow more so in coming decades. We've never had a higher percentage of foreign-born citizens than we do right now, and that's primarily a result of the huge influx of immigrants (unprecedented in sheer numbers) across the 1990s, the first decade of nearly-global globalization (with the Core expanding to include two-thirds of humanity).

For the U.S. to remain open to this historic process, I favor the quickest and simplest routes for immigrants to become citizens, and for foreign-born citizens, after living in the U.S. for a quarter-century or more, to be granted the right to run for national office (we have only twoópresident and vice-president). When we created the amendment to ban foreign-born presidents, we were living under the long shadow of our birth as British colonies, and the fear that drove that rule set was that British citizens might use that loophole to come over here and re-establish control, so to speak. That fear is a long-gone concept (although I don't doubt a Tony Blair would clean up here in any presidential run), and given the fact that one-third or more of our citizens in 2050 are likely to be foreign-born, it makes sense to reverse the now outdate rule.

One of the great efficiencies of our system is that, if you're secretly Bill Gates, or Steven Spielberg, or Michael Jordan, this is the place to come and find full outlet for that talent. There is no economic system in the world that rewards talent like ours, which is why the U.S. has so long been such an incredible magnet for talents professionals from all over the world.

That magnetic attraction will naturally diminish as other rising poles of the Functioning Core (like China, India, etc.) grow their own forms of magnetism, but it can also be artificially depressed by our own policies toward guest workers, student visas, and immigration in general.

I am scared, as is my former fellow grad student Fareed Zakaria, by the heavy drop in foreign students studying in the U.S. since 9/11, because this is the first downward movement in that trend in more than three decades. Undergrads from China have dropped 20 percent in 2004 (45 percent in grad students), and the similar numbers for India are 9 percent (undergrads) and 28 percent (grads).

Here's why it matters:

Some Americans might say, "Good riddance, it's their loss," Actually the greater loss is ours. American universities benefit from having the best students from across the globe. But the single most deadly effect of this trends is the erosion of American capacity in science and technology. The U.S. economy has powered ahead in large part because of the amazing productivity of America's science and technology. Yet that research is now down largely by foreign students. The National Science Board (NSB) documented this reality last year, finding that 38 percent of doctorate holders in America's science and engineering workforce are foreign-born. Foreigners make up more than half of the students enrolled in science and engineering programs. The dirty little secret about America's scientific edge is that it's largely produced by foreigners and immigrants.

One way how the Defense Department spreads it's influence around the world is its educating of many of the world's military leaders in institutions like the Naval War College. Same thing is true for U.S. higher education in general, especially in places like the University of Chicago, which is famous for cranking out economic leaders for foreign governments.

All that influence is put at risk by this aspect of our Global War on Terrorism. The flow of people, as I describe it in PNM, is crucial to making America the country it is today. Mess with that flow, and you mess with America's economic and political future.

[p.s., is it just me, or does anyone else notice that Fareed basically publishes the same piece--word for word--each week in both Newsweek and the Washington Post? No offense, but isn't that sort of cheating?]