As background, here is some selected text pulled directly from the Constitution of the United States, as amended. Please pay close attention to the highlighted portions.
Preamble
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Article I Section 2
No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.
Article I Section 3
No person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.
Article II Section 1
No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
Article IV Section 4
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.
Amendment 15
1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
Amendment 19
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Amendment 24
1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.
Amendment 26
1. The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.
The Preamble says that the people of the United States ordains and establishes the Constitution. To ordain is "to order by or as if by decree", in other words, the people of the United States are the "owners" of the Constitution.
The 15th, 19th, 24th and 26th amendments clarify who can vote: any CITIZEN over 18 years old, male or female, regardless of race or whether you paid taxes.
Article I sections 2 and 3 limit Representatives and Senators to CITIZENS only, but seven and nine years respectively.
Article II Section 1 says the President (and the Vice President, because he or she can become President) MUST be a NATURAL BORN CITIZEN of the United States.
According to Politico.com:
U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled that the government cannot present testimony from a key witness against Ahmed Ghaliani, a Tanzanian national transferred from Guantanamo last year to be tried in connection with the bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998.
Using what appears to be a fruit-of-the-poisoned tree rationale, Kaplan said that because the government learned of witness Hussein Abebe during the CIA's aggressive interrogation of Ghailani, prosecutors could not use Abebe's testimony at trial.
"Abebe was identified and located as a close and direct result of statements made by Ghailani while he was held by the CIA," Kaplan wrote. "The government has failed to prove that Abebe's testimony is sufficiently attenuated from Ghailani' s coerced statements to permit its receipt in evidence."
Kaplan, a Clinton appointee, has issued a series of rulings against Ghailani on other matters, including the delays the government caused by holding him abroad and at Guantanamo. However, the judge said Tuesday that he was unwilling to water down Constitutional standards in order to accomodate the government on the significant issue of Abebe's testimony.
"The Constitution is the rock upon which our nation rests. We must follow it not only when it is convenient, but when fear and danger beckon in a different direction. To do less would diminish us and undermine the foundation upon which we stand," Kaplan wrote.
Please explain to me why anyone would think, given the above quotes from the Constitution that the protections of the Constitution as amended extend to non-citizens.
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2 comments:
I think this may be the part of the Constitution that you had difficulty locating.
Amendment V (1791)
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Amendment VI (1791)
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.
Amendment VII (1791)
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
Amendment VIII (1791)
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
Amendment IX (1791)
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Actually, I didn't have a problem finding those amendments at all, but if you read the preamble, the people or persons spoken of throughout the Constitution are those who enforce it and uphold it, which are the citizens of the United States, not citizens of other countries.
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