Quote:From "Are Foreign Nationals Entitled to the Same

Constitutional Rights As Citizens?"

David Cole

Georgetown University Law Center, [email protected]

 

"The Constitution does distinguish in some respects between

the rights of citizens and noncitizens: the right not to be discriminatorily

denied the vote and the right to run for federal elective

office are expressly restricted to citizens.12 All other rights, however,

are written without such a limitation. The Fifth and Fourteenth

Amendment due process and equal protection guarantees

extend to all "persons." The rights attaching to criminal trials,

including the right to a public trial, a trial by jury, the assistance

of a lawyer, and the right to confront adverse witnesses, all apply

to "the accused." And both the First Amendment's protections

of political and religious freedoms and the Fourth Amendment's

protection of privacy and liberty apply to "the people."

 

...

 

"The fact that the Framers chose to limit to citizens only the

rights to vote and to run for federal office is one indication that

they did not intend other constitutional rights to be so limited.

Accordingly, the Supreme Court has squarely stated that neither

the First Amendment nor the Fifth Amendment "acknowledges

any distinction between citizens and resident aliens." For more

than a century, the Court has recognized that the Equal Protection

Clause is "universal in [its] application, to all persons within

the territorial jurisdiction, without regard to differences of ...

nationality."