> We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights

I'm not religious, so I don't believe in a "creator" in the most literal sense, but doesn't this imply that (from the government's perspective) that these rights were given by God, and cannot be taken away by a government?

Again, I'm aware that the declaration is not a legally binding document, but I feel like it symbolizes the ideals of what the US was supposed to be.

perhaps it means that "some aspects of (human) life on Earth are recognized as fundamental -- by definition they are beyond politics, and beyond any current versions of laws in any written human language" so .. the US Constitution is saying explicitly (using words including diety) .. we recognize that human law is not enough to fairly and completely spell out rights .. therefore these OTHER rights are "inalienable"

Where in the Declaration does it state that entering the US is an inalienable right? I'm confused.

It doesn't, but I took the "liberty" part to include "free speech", and I'm arguing that by using critical speech as a means to deny a visa, that's effectively the government taking away a right.

I'm not a lawyer or a political philosopher or an ethicist, I'm just a mediocre software engineer, so I will acknowledge that I'm speaking out of my ass on this; I'm just a guy who has read a few books and has a frustrating adherence to my principles.

You cannot take away a right to enter the US from somebody who does not have it in the first place. Only citizens and permanent residents have such a right. Even people given a visa do not have this right, they still can be turned away at the border without any of their rights infringed.

This is no different, for example, from applying for a research grant and getting denied on the basis of the application. The government examined your speech in the application and decided not to give you money, is this a free speech suppression?

"life" could apply to immigration, "liberty" should apply to immigration, and "pursuit of happiness" should apply to immigration.

That's just kicking the can down the road, because the full sentence is:

> We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Which would seem to be irrespective of nationality. I think that today, we understand that "men" was meant as a generic term for "person", but the rest of that sentence seems to say that everybody who is a creation of God (which is understood to be everybody) has those unalienable rights. It sure reads to me like it says "everyone on Earth has these rights" not just "people in these colonies have these rights".

I am trolling a little bit here, since I don't actually believe we (the U.S.) should insist on our Constitutional protections applying to non-citizens. But that is what it says to me.

The person who upheld the self-evidence of those truths also asserted his property rights over other humans, so I don't think we can draw meaningful conclusions as to whom he intended to apply his terminology.

Men/man has always originated from a general term for humans. See "Herman" and "Wifman".