> The text of the US constitution explicitly talks about the rights of people, not citizens - so I would argue that the constitution itself has always prohibited this.

No, it talks about "the people." As in the preamble: "We the People of the United States."

> However, there is a long history of interpreting 'people' to mean specific groups - from only white people to only citizens.

Playing with the interpretation of "people" has never been a mechanism for excluding people from constitutional protection. For example, the 3/5ths clause states as follows:

> Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons

It refers to enslaved people as "persons." The Fugitive Slave clause likewise refers to a "person held to service or labour."

>As in the preamble: "We the People of the United States."

The preamble is discussing who is creating the constitution and why. It does not say it only applies to certain individuals. I don't see how you can use that to argue that the government is free to infringe upon the rights of noncitizens.

As a grammatical matter, the phrase “the people” must refer to an antecedent. Even standing alone, “the people” clearly refers to certain people, not “all people.” The term isn’t read as applying only to citizens, because certain provisions of the constitution specifically require citizenship. It encompasses citizens and non-citizen residents, and to some extent people present on US soil. But it’s hard to read “the people” to mean “people in other countries.”

>But it’s hard to read “the people” to mean “people in other countries.”

The Constitution makes it clear that these rights are universal by saying that the government may not make laws that infringe upon them. They aren't granting rights, they are declaring which rights they must abide by. And with that, the use of "the people" in the part about free assembly should rely more on the context there then the preamble, where it clearly means "the people assembling" not "the citizens assembling."

Further on your "persons" point, the relevant Fourth Amendment makes it clear the terms are interchangeable.

>The right of the people to be secure in their persons...

The first half of your post contradicts the second half of your post.

No it doesn’t. The condition of slavery wasn’t addressed by interpreting “people” to exclude enslaved people, additional words were added to distinguish enslaved people from free people. But free Black people, for example, were always included in the count of “free persons.” Other laws may have imposed limits. In 1789 women couldn’t vote and in 2021 children still can’t. But they were all included in the definition of “people.” Those other laws changed but the meaning of “people” didn’t.

The first half of your argument is about how the constitution specifies citizens (a subset of people) with "we the people". The second half is about how "we the people" refers to everyone (not a subset of people).

yes, i'd generally agree, but not everyone does. and we see that politicians are relentlessly driven to expand their own power, so soemtimes we need to spell out limitations like this explicitly.