| > If you believe that the constitution protects inalienable rights that cannot be taken away by the government then how can those rights be denied to non citizens? I was not stating an opinion as to which way it should be. I was describing reality, and stating that I'm not sure which parts of the Bill of Rights apply to foreigners and which don't. "Inalienable rights" is a phrase that does not appear in the Constitution, and the courts hold the Declaration of Independence to have no legal force whatsoever. Where I was talking about actual jurisprudence (like it or not), you seem to be attacking a straw man. > The government gets to decide who is and isn’t a citizen, Yes, but within some pretty tight limits. Persons born on U.S. soil to persons who are subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S. have birthright citizenship, and this cannot be taken away by statutes or bureaucratic acts. Others can naturalize according to statutes. > which would mean they can decide who is or isn’t eligible for so-called “inalienable” rights. It wouldn't be a country if everyone in the world had all the same rights as the country's citizens. Some rights have to be reserved to the citizens. De minimis the right to permanently reside and vote in that country. If you don't have a right to reside permanently in some country, then there must be other things which you are not allowed to do in that country. |