In the old days, it was routine for customs officers to search ships coming in to harbor, including the effects of their passengers, to enforce importation laws. If customs couldn't do this, then importation laws would have no teeth, which is clearly not the intention of the constitution, which gives Congress the explicit power to enact and enforce them.
CBP argues that their smartphone and laptop searches were just an extension of that old custom, the court disagreed, ruling that a smartphone or laptop is fundamentally different from a ship's log or traveler's trunk, such that a higher expectation of privacy exists.
Yes, but electronic devices can't digitally contain physical substances that might be subject to customs laws. It's not comparable. It's probably still today reasonable to search ships in the harbor and passengers for physical substances (like banned animals or fruits/vegetables), but it's not obvious to me how searching electronic devices achieves any reasonable objective related to customs law.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalyp...
Child porn is prohibited to be imported in any form, including digital. Customs isn’t about just physical objects.
The rights granted under the constitution were provided explicitly under the knowing assumption that they could be used to conceal actual crimes or criminal intent. That's the point of them needing protection from the authorities. The mere possibility of committing a crime isn't enough grounds to invade a person's privacy to that degree. You need actual reason to suspect it in an individual case to go that far.
AFAICT, that’s the practical effect of a holding of an single intermediate appellate court this year on an issue that while important on its own was kind of a side issue in a campaign finance case, and the rationale seems a bit wobbly; and it's logic actually assumes as a starting point hat non-immigrant visa holders having the same 2A rights as everyone else.
While it is for the moment binding precedent within the 9th Circuit, I wouldn't draw any broad generalizations from it, or, even, assume it will hold up on the future.
There are a variety of federal laws that codify that as well, and I think they're all unconstitutional also.
Hm. Page 27: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44618.pdf
I'm ignoring FFL's because it's not directly relevant.
Another thing that I just learned it is actually still illegal to borrow a gun at a shooting range if you have a non-immigrant visa (unless you have a hunting license). Even if he hadn't lost his visa he'd still be breaking a different law. It's illegal for people visiting with tourist visas to go to shooting ranges, but for tourists visiting from countries that don't require visas it's OK.
Huh; do you have a citation for this? I used to bring scientists from other countries to the shooting range for the cultural experience, and almost brought a pal from Europe hunting a year or two ago (on my license). Never realized I might have been putting them in legal jeopardy.
If your friend was visiting from a European country that didn't require a visa to visit the US (most of them) you'd be in the clear.
Some discussion for non-immigrant visas about halfway down this article: https://reason.com/2019/01/12/illegal-aliens-guns-and-strict...
Weird quirk with the huntling license, so that second example is a state law?
It is true in practice.
One example: the children of illegal immigrants are legally entitled to public education, even though they aren't citizens.
1) People who aren’t citizens are still entitled to public education. Many green card holders go to US public schools, for instance
2) Anyone born on US soil is a US citizen regardless of their parents immigration status
Which is to say, the constitutional rights of non-citizens are hardly as obvious as they are for citizens.
You are of course correct that the rules do not apply evenly for immigrants and nonimmigrants, especially since nonimmigrants convicted of a crime are largely seen out as soon as their sentence is served. The same isn't true of immigrants.
Mostly.
This argument makes sense, but I think it proves too much: states already have plenty of laws that restrict certain rights or privileges to citizens only. Your argument, as I understand it, is that since immigration status is a matter of federal law, states cannot deny a right (to K-12 education) on the basis of immigration status -- but it is commonly accepted that they can and do deny such a right in other circumstances, e.g. to serve as a police officer, for example, which I'm quite sure state laws deny to illegal immigrants.
are largely seen out as soon as their sentence is served
What do you mean by "seen out", exactly?
Committing a crime of moral turpitude as a non-immigrant (and even some green card holders) makes you eligible for deportation. [1]
[1] https://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/us-immigration/legal-re...
You can't legally work in any job as an illegal immigrant - it's a Federal law: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1324a
As a bonus (malus?), the very same malicious process can be used against kids of homeless parents.
https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-court-guns-immi...
[0] https://law.justia.com/constitution/us/article-1/58-the-mili...
Wikipedia has an excellent reference on this. See the "Experience in America prior to the U.S. Constitution" section: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_Unit...
Regulate is a form that appeared in Middle English that means “to control by rules”.
I’m all for guns and appreciating the inscrutable nature of the 2nd amendment. But words mean things.
There's obviously a middle ground where regulation is allowed. There's no world where artillery, or arming the insane isn't acceptable in a civilized society. Conversely, the overreach of prohibition of arms in places like DC or NYC is not in alignment with the ideals of nation.
To me, the notion of armed civil insurrection against a modern state apparatus is absurd, and has been since the late 19th century. Civil disobedience and disruptive protest, including protest that undermines control of the armed forces, is the only check on the state's ability to wield force. Even a 3rd rate army is able to control civil unrest.
A: Soldiers were trained to follow rules (aka regulations) and obey. Line up shoulder to shoulder and fire 3-5 volleys a minute in a prescribed manner. A rabble would get 1-2 off and die.
There’s a very real possibility that a teenager with an AR15 is literally part of a well-regulated military group protecting the county.
The following source gives examples from the Oxford English Dictionary of how the idiom was used from 1709 through 1894, demonstrating how the idiom 'well-regulated' has meaning beyond 'regulations' i.e. laws.
https://www.constitution.org/cons/wellregu.htm
> 1709: "If a liberal Education has formed in us well-regulated Appetites and worthy Inclinations."
> 1714: "The practice of all well-regulated courts of justice in the world."
> 1812: "The equation of time ... is the adjustment of the difference of time as shown by a well-regulated clock and a true sun dial."
> 1848: "A remissness for which I am sure every well-regulated person will blame the Mayor."
> 1862: "It appeared to her well-regulated mind, like a clandestine proceeding."
> 1894: "The newspaper, a never wanting adjunct to every well-regulated American embryo city."
The sense of the term above is something like 'normal', 'well-ordered', 'regular'. Indeed the word 'regular' also shares the same origin as the word 'regulations', yet its common meanings are unrelated to the concept of regulations.
Parsing the 2nd Amendment, the US Supreme Court wrote that "the adjective “well-regulated” implies nothing more than the imposition of proper discipline and training", and elaborated (quoting another scholar, Thomas Cooley):
> The meaning of the provision undoubtedly is, that the people, from whom the militia must be taken, shall have the right to keep and bear arms; and they need no permission or regulation of law for the purpose. But this enables government to have a well-regulated militia; for to bear arms implies something more than the mere keeping; it implies the learning to handle and use them in a way that makes those who keep them ready for their efficient use; in other words, it implies the right to meet for voluntary discipline in arms, observing in doing so the laws of public order.”
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/554/570/#tab-opi...
The phrase "a well-regulated militia" in this context consequently means a militia that's learned, proficient, and effective in firearm use. In any case, what we're discussing is the preface of the amendment, which announces a purpose for the amendment and does not limit it. As the court wrote:
> The Second Amendment is naturally divided into two parts: its prefatory clause and its operative clause. The former does not limit the latter grammatically, but rather announces a purpose. The Amendment could be rephrased, “Because a well regulated Militia is necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.”
The military calls rules that impose proper discipline and training "regulations". Such as Army Regulation 670-1, which states “While in uniform, personnel will not place their hands in their pockets, except momentarily to place or retrieve objects.”
The word "regulation" is perfectly compatible with the "well-regulated" idiom.
the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.
> By the time of the founding, the right to have arms had become fundamental for English subjects. Blackstone, whose works, we have said, “constituted the preeminent authority on English law for the founding generation,” cited the arms provision of the Bill of Rights as one of the fundamental rights of Englishmen. His description of it cannot possibly be thought to tie it to militia or military service. It was, he said, “the natural right of resistance and self-preservation,” and “the right of having and using arms for self-preservation and defence,”. Other contemporary authorities concurred. Thus, the right secured in 1689 as a result of the Stuarts’ abuses was by the time of the founding understood to be an individual right protecting against both public and private violence.
> And, of course, what the Stuarts had tried to do to their political enemies, George III had tried to do to the colonists. In the tumultuous decades of the 1760’s and 1770’s, the Crown began to disarm the inhabitants of the most rebellious areas. That provoked polemical reactions by Americans invoking their rights as Englishmen to keep arms. A New York article of April 1769 said that “[i]t is a natural right which the people have reserved to themselves, confirmed by the Bill of Rights, to keep arms for their own defence.” They understood the right to enable individuals to defend themselves. As the most important early American edition of Blackstone’s Commentaries (by the law professor and former Antifederalist St. George Tucker) made clear in the notes to the description of the arms right, Americans understood the “right of self-preservation” as permitting a citizen to “repe[l] force by force” when “the intervention of society in his behalf, may be too late to prevent an injury.”
> There seems to us no doubt, on the basis of both text and history, that the Second Amendment conferred an individual right to keep and bear arms. Of course the right was not unlimited, just as the First Amendment’s right of free speech was not, (...) [citations omitted]
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/554/570/#tab-opi...
> ... the Second Amendment’s prefatory clause announces the purpose for which the right was codified: to prevent elimination of the militia. The prefatory clause does not suggest that preserving the militia was the only reason Americans valued the ancient right; most undoubtedly thought it even more important for self-defense and hunting. But the threat that the new Federal Government would destroy the citizens’ militia by taking away their arms was the reason that right—unlike some other English rights—was codified in a written Constitution. ...
> Besides ignoring the historical reality that the Second Amendment was not intended to lay down a “novel principl[e]” but rather codified a right “inherited from our English ancestors,” Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U. S. 275, 281 (1897), petitioners’ interpretation does not even achieve the narrower purpose that prompted codification of the right. If, as they believe, the Second Amendment right is no more than the right to keep and use weapons as a member of an organized militia — if, that is, the organized militia is the sole institutional beneficiary of the Second Amendment’s guarantee — it does not assure the existence of a “citizens’ militia” as a safeguard against tyranny ...
> Every late-19th-century legal scholar that we have read interpreted the Second Amendment to secure an individual right unconnected with militia service. The most famous was the judge and professor Thomas Cooley, who wrote a massively popular 1868 Treatise on Constitutional Limitations. Concerning the Second Amendment it said: (...)
> “It might be supposed from the phraseology of this provision that the right to keep and bear arms was only guaranteed to the militia; but this would be an interpretation not warranted by the intent. The militia, as has been elsewhere explained, consists of those persons who, under the law, are liable to the performance of military duty, and are officered and enrolled for service when called upon. (...) The meaning of the provision undoubtedly is, that the people, from whom the militia must be taken, shall have the right to keep and bear arms; and they need no permission or regulation of law for the purpose. But this enables government to have a well-regulated militia; for to bear arms implies something more than the mere keeping; it implies the learning to handle and use them in a way that makes those who keep them ready for their efficient use; in other words, it implies the right to meet for voluntary discipline in arms, observing in doing so the laws of public order.”
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They even had 2 canine units circle my car and jump in and out of it at least 10 times each.
Talk about a heavy handed approach.
As long as you know you're not actually carrying contraband or is a terrorist, just smile, comply when reasonable, and then say politely that you'd like to see their manager to file a complaint.
And I have Canadian citizenship.
Signed and donated. It happens to me every, single, fucking, time, losing 1 hour every trip back home.
Since August 15, US border agents in Canada are now able to prevent you from withdrawing if they detain you. (Bill C-23)
https://www.senate.gov/civics/constitution_item/constitution...
'People' have rights:
> the right of the people peaceably to assemble
> the right of the people to keep and bear Arms,
> the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects
> other [right]s retained by the people.
> [powers] are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
'People' usually means 'voters':
> chosen every second Year by the People of the several States
> The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof,
> the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.
Government is made of 'citizens':
> No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have ... been seven Years a Citizen of the United States,
[etc for Senator, President]
and 'citizens' are covered by Federal Judiciary in interstate cases and interstate rights:
> judicial Power shall extend to all Cases ... between Citizens and ...
> The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.
Amendment XIV (1868) clarifies the difference between a 'person' and 'citizen', to some [insufficient] extent.
> All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.
and makes the most interesting statement about the rights of a 'person'
> nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
The reality is that the Constituation does not explain what are the rights of non-citizen persons, wihile at the same time repeatedly stating that not all persons are citizens.
You can split hairs on the wording, and many judges have, but the truth is that the authors just didn't write carefully about visitors and non-citizen immigrants, since international travel was very difficult in the 18th and 19th Centuries so not a big deal (except for slavery, which was a whole different mess).
IMO the BOR should apply to all humans, anywhere in the universe, when subject to US Government jurisdiction. Let's hope courts agree.
Their rights are violated by courts?
It's pretty easy to make the case that nobody knows what the U.S. Constitution actually means.
Court upheld the right of an illegal alien to own a firearm.
> Thus, the Seventh Circuit leaves Meza-Rodriguez with the right to bear arms, but without the ability to exorcise that right under federal law.
What is the point of a theoretical right that can't be exercised in practice? Citizens of the USSR had the right to free speech, free political expression, etc.
It is perhaps a more accurate description to say that Meza-Rodriquez is in the class of people to whom the right applies, but that the right allows restrictions based on conduct, including illegal presence.
To the extent that your speech does not also constitute illegal action, there are no restrictions on speech and those protections do not depend on nationality, citizenship, etc. All that matters is the jurisdiction of the US court system (since they can't enforce First Amendment rights if they don't have jurisdiction).
Some types of speech are also acts, like conspiring to commit a crime, or inciting violent action. In those cases, the content of the speech is protected, but the actions of the speech are subject to prosecution.
> If you make that argument then the customs officers are also NOT on US soil and have no authority to search phones (or do anything) at all