Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by American Thinker on May 05, 2025. With edits to match MTC’s style guidelines, it is cross-posted here with permission.
President Trump is getting a lot of unwarranted media criticism for stating that he isn’t a lawyer who can give a formal constitutional law opinion on due process for illegal border crossers.
His administration rightfully seeks to deport them.
But even for the progressive left, it might be fair to give President Trump some benefit of the doubt: the Constitution’s meaning may not be readily apparent even, or especially, to lawyers, and otherwise hinges on one word.
Both the 5th and 14th Amendments refer to “persons” including in due process. But what does “person” mean? Moreover, what exactly is due process?
The definition of a person is in the Constitution’s Preamble, which is crucial to constantly reference when reading the rest of the Constitution.
“We the People” is followed by the prepositional phrase “of the United States,” which technically creates belonging. Those who belong also declare an intent to reinforce their belonging by creating a “more perfect union.” This makes persons those who have entered into a perfected contract with a corporation called the United States.
Those persons then empower representatives who act on their behalf through elections. Voting in elections is a right reserved constitutionally for citizens. Persons, therefore, refer to citizens who have given themselves rights as specific persons in their own constitution—preceded by a Declaration that created separateness from others.
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Even if you assert that the Amendments are a separate Bill of Rights, they were originally written to reinforce allegiance to the Constitution for the anti-federalists. Some must also be referenced to their specific context in the emancipation of slavery. The 14th Amendment converted what was then deemed legal human property under U.S. contract into contract freedom. Strictly speaking, illegal immigrants are not in any contract relationship in U.S. law, which can then be converted into a release from obligation.
The other problem is defining due process. That is simply a standard of fairness in legal proceedings, but it again addresses people defined by the Preamble. Moreover, it is limited to the government refraining from denying “life, liberty, or property.” Non-legal immigrants and other non-citizens are not technically “persons” with due process rights, defined at least by our Constitution. They may indeed have natural and other human rights, but not due process via the Constitution in its current form.
Illegal immigrants could, of course, simply declare their own constitution, but how could it be ratified in the United States? Moreover, U.S. contract law requires parties to be legally qualified, including capacity, to enter into a contract. Interestingly, a U.S. employer is legally required to discharge any “undocumented worker” whom they may have mistakenly employed. Under the Immigration Reform and Control Act, it is illegal to knowingly employ the undocumented. That can seem to contradict the Immigration and Nationality Act. But that Act addresses discrimination based on national origin or citizenship, and those categories do not assume that someone is here illegally.
Deporting a non-citizen otherwise denies them nothing, except attempted citizenship by non-legal means. They are free to seek citizenship legally. In fact, deportation actually aids them and others by upholding fair and legal citizenship paths for all applicants, without unfairly prejudicing hard-earned citizenship that has been rightfully attained legally.
You don’t have to be a practicing attorney or law professor to understand the U.S. Constitution. Indeed, that may be a disadvantage. The Constitution was written by and for “We the People of the United States,” and it is by and for those People, and declared in bold, clear language. The word “People” is also specifically capitalized, which makes it a proper noun, identifying a single entity, and converting it from a general category, to a specific exclusive identity. This is more than a “contractarian” argument between a citizen or a person because the Constitution both preserves citizenship, and elevates person, unifying them into a single exclusive body. Neither are constitutionally granted to illegal migrants, and what is not granted cannot be taken away or denied.
This interpretation only gets obscured by opportunistic lawyers or by political ideologues suffering from the logical fallacy of wishful thinking. Both of those categories, unfortunately, make up the majority of the legal profession and the law school academy.
Image: “We the People” by Steven Nichols on Flickr
