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Originally Posted by TheMercenary All your reference stated was that they could not deny the individual the right to run a laundry and collect funds because he happened to be Chinese. It did not, however, state that the US Constitution applies to all persons who are non-citizens. That was not a finding of the Court.

“The rights of the petitioners, as affected by the proceedings of which they complain, are not less because they are aliens and subjects of the emperor of China… . The fourteenth amendment to the constitution is not confined to the protection of citizens. It says: ‘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.’These provisions are universal in their application, to all persons within the territorial jurisdiction , without regard to any differences of race, of color, or of nationality; and the equal protection of the laws is a pledge of the protection of equal laws… . The questions we have to consider and decide in these cases, therefore, are to be treated as involving the rights of every citizen of the United States equally with those of the strangers and aliens who now invoke the jurisdiction of the court.”