Boom! Lawyered: Immigrants' Constitutional Rights Edition
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January 31, 2018 at 01:55PM
via My Reading List: Unread https://rewire.news/ablc/2018/01/31/boom-lawyered-immigrant-constitutional-rights-edition
«Undocumented people do not have the full panoply of constitutional rights—they cannot vote, for example. But undocumented people do have the right to equal protection under the law and due process of law before they can be deprived of life, liberty, or property. And that's because the due process and equal protection clauses in the Fifth and 14th Amendments apply to "persons."
Not "citizens." Not "Americans." Not "people we like."
Persons.
[…]
The Constitution's authors were clear: They knew the difference between "citizens of the United States" and "persons." If they had meant to exclude anyone who was not a U.S. citizen from the protection of the due process and equal protection clauses, they could have made those clauses applicable to "citizens of the United States."»