I listened to Megan Kelly address this matter on the O'Reilly factor this evening. She clerked for the US Supreme Court. She says that the courts have held that a strong case must be made to deny citizen's rights to those who are here legally, as the UK citizen is. With the exception of voting, a legal non-citizen can do anything that a citizen can.baldeagle wrote: I always thought that the US constitution applied only to US citizens and that the framers did not intend for the bill of rights and other provisions to apply to others who were merely located in the US (slaves, British soldiers fighting the war of 1812, Native Americans, etc. etc.). Was I misinformed in my public school education on this point?
I may be wrong, but I think the logic goes like this. Humans have certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. To secure those rights we Americans formed a government designed to interfere with those rights as little as possible and built in all sorts of checks and balances against the natural human tendency to abuse power. Therefore, anyone residing within our borders, citizen or not, is entitled to those basic rights. They are also responsible to abide by our laws. As far as the shades of the law and exactly which rights they enjoy, I think perhaps Charles or another lawyer on the forum could answer better than I.
To put it another way, do you think it would be morally acceptable for us to try and convict a non-citizen without the benefit of a lawyer and a jury simply because they are not a citizen? Or to deny them the right to speak? Or to worship as they saw fit? (Note that I am not referring to people who are in the country illegally. They are lawbreakers and the responsibility of the government.)
Maybe a Constitutional lawyer can be more explicit.
Amazing, isn't it?