ex-idaho

Should all people in the US regardless of citizenship be awarded basic rights ie. right to an attorney, habeus corpus and other jusdicial rights?

Please detail your reasons for your position.

meritocrat

It depends on whether those rights are designed to be universal in nature or not.

A non-citizen does not warrant equal civil rights to a native citizen.

ex-idaho

Why not?

meritocrat

Because civil rights extends to all citizens of a nation. I you're not a citizen why should you have civil rights?

Jat

These rights should apply to everyone or they apply to no one. It does say the ALL men are created equal. It doesn't say that all Americans are created equal.

Animesh

Last I checked, they (non-citizens) were.

comrade009

Here's my two cents on the subject:

I know that a lot of the ideas in the declaration of independence and constitution were taken from John Locke. The story as I know it is the Locke believed that mankind originally has been in a "state of nature," before mankind became "civilised." To leave this state of nature, persons had to agree to a "social contract," on his or her behalf, and on the behalf of society. The person would consent to being governed, and in turn, would be granted inalienable rights (i.e., life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, etc.).

Today, I consider becoming a citizen symbolic of taking on the social contract. Because a non-citizen, in this sense, has not signed the contract, he has not consented to be governed, therefore, they do not have a right to be in the place that is governed. In addition, they do not gain the inalienable rights.

This is only to say that, constitutionally, non-citizens have no rights and can be treated like trash. I'm not to sure I agree with that though.

meritocrat

It was Hobbes who wrote about the 'state of nature'. Locke was the first to emphasise the notion of natural rights (in Locke's view natural rights were the right to life, liberty and property).

Loren Pechtel

So long as they are only charged with criminal offenses. In times of war, enemy soldiers out of uniform get treated as spies--they can be shot out of hand.

We are at war with the terrorists. The terrorists have no uniform so they are inherently out of uniform. Thus a captured terrorist does not get the normal protections.

Corwin

Depends on which rights you're talking about.

If you're not an enfranchised, taxpaying citizen, there are some rights that don't apply. The 'all men are created equal' bit of the Declaration isn't a statement of American rights.... it's a statement of human rights that ideally should apply to everyone. (It also has no force of law backing it up.) I'd say if you're being tried in the US justice system, US legal protections should apply. (But then those aren't so much rights of individuals as they are restrictions on government. It's a fine distinction, but an important one.) Aliens don't have rights to things like welfare and enfranchisement tho, unless they become citizens.