Source: Reason
by Damon Root
“The First Amendment says that ‘Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech.’ But one prominent conservative judge, whose name has been mentioned as a possible U.S. Supreme Court nominee by President Donald Trump, thinks that protection against government censorship may not apply to non-citizens who are present in the United States. Is the judge right? Writing for himself in the recent case of United States v. Escobar-Temal, Judge Amul Thapar of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit asserted that ‘neither history nor precedent indicates that the First Amendment definitively applies to aliens.’ Yet in Bridges v. Wilson (1945), the Supreme Court unambiguously stated that ‘freedom of speech and of press is accorded aliens residing in this country.'” (12/18/25)