The First Amendment Rights of Noncitizens
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Do noncitizens located within the United States have First Amendment free speech rights? If so, are they less extensive than the free speech rights of citizens? How does the federal government’s power over immigration and naturalization intersect with the speech rights of those who have been temporarily admitted to the country? These and more questions have become increasingly relevant this year. In multiple cases, the Trump administration has cited writings and speeches by noncitizens as its justification for deporting them. Those noncitizens have argued that their writings and speeches are protected and cannot be the basis of government adverse action.
It is very possible that this issue will reach the Supreme Court in the coming terms. In Bridges v. Wixon (1945), the Court remarked that “freedom of speech and of press is accorded aliens residing in this country.” But that statement was arguably dicta, meaning the Court will likely treat this as an undecided issue. Join Thomas Berry, Director of Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute, for a discussion of the controversy and to hear his argument for why noncitizens within the country have First Amendment rights.
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Thomas Berry is the director of the Cato Institute’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies and editor in chief of the Cato Supreme Court Review. Before joining Cato, he was an attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation and clerked for Judge E. Grady Jolly of the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Berry’s areas of interest include the separation of powers, executive branch appointments, and First Amendment freedom of speech. Berry’s academic work has appeared in several journals including the Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy. His popular writing has appeared in many outlets, including The Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Berry has testified on the Appointments Clause before a subcommittee of the US Senate, and his work on the Vacancies Act has been cited by the US District Court for the District of Columbia. Berry holds a JD from Stanford Law School, where he was a senior editor on the Stanford Law and Policy Review and a Bradley Fellow in the Stanford Constitutional Law Center. He graduated with a BA in liberal arts from St. John’s College, Santa Fe. |
