Are people who illegally cross our borders afforded the same constitutional rights as American citizens? If a person sneaks across our border from another country to avoid going through the process of becoming a legal American citizen, should American taxpayers be held hostage to pay the fees associated with housing, feeding, and providing medical care for them while they fight their deportation in court?

Are the lines between the rights of  US citizens and illegal aliens becoming so blurred by the Left, that most Americans are starting to feel like we’re living in a sanctuary nation?

The radical leftist Southern Poverty Law Center, a radical group who is at the forefront of the fight to silence conservatives, conservative media, and Christian based organizations.

In 2014, the SPLC placed Ben Carson — later a Republican presidential candidate and now the current secretary of housing and urban development — on its “extremist watch list,” alongside neo-Nazis and white supremacists. After an uproar, the group removed him and apologized.

The SPLC is now on the front-lines in the fight to prevent the deportation of an illegal alien “journalist” who was arrested during an ICE protest.

Manuel Duran, who was arrested by police in April for allegedly refusing to leave the area during a protest, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) because of his illegal immigrant status. Duran was denied an appeal by the Board of Immigration Appeals in October following an earlier deportation order by a different immigration judge.

According to the SPLC, Duran’s deportation is “scheduled … in the coming weeks.”

A police affidavit says Duran was arrested during the protest because he refused commands to leave the street. He was one of nine arrested that day.

Yet Duran and the SPLC claim his scheduled deportation is because of his previous criticisms toward local law enforcement and say “his arrest and detention were an effort to suppress his reporting, and that they violate his First Amendment rights of freedom of speech and the press.” -Daily Caller

“Manuel Duran is a journalist who was simply doing his job — reporting on the Memphis Police and ICE — when he was unlawfully arrested and summarily sent to a remote ICE detention center in retaliation for him exposing the truth,” said Michelle Lapointe, the acting deputy legal director for the SPLC, in April.

“At no time do we target individuals based on their criticism and/or opinion of the Memphis Police Department,” department spokeswoman Lt. Karen Rudolph wrote in an email. “As it relates specifically to the arrests at 201 Poplar Avenue, the officers responded to an unpermitted protest, issued lawful orders, made probable cause arrests, and acted within their authority.”

A new legal filing in the case of detained reporter Manuel Duran alleges the Memphis Police Department targeted him for arrest at an April 3 protest because he previously published stories critical of the agency.

“The actions pursued by government officials, in this case, threaten core First Amendment freedoms that are essential to our democracy: the right to criticize and expose the actions of government officials, and the right of members of the press to write and publish about them,” the legal filing begins.

ICE spokesman Bryan D. Cox on Monday referred to an earlier statement that contends Duran missed his day in Atlanta immigration court in 2007. Based on the absence, the court ordered him deported. ICE says he has lived in the U.S. illegally since then.

Duran’s attorneys have asked the Atlanta immigration court to reopen the case, saying he didn’t receive notice and that he’d face danger as a reporter in El Salvador.

Are illegal aliens living in the United States entitled to the same constitutional rights as American citizens?

According to the Washington Post, in 1999, the Supreme Court sharply limited the First Amendment rights of illegal immigrants, ruling that people here unlawfully cannot shield themselves from deportation by claiming the government is trying to banish them simply because of their controversial political views.

The 6 to 3 decision involving a group of Palestinians living in Los Angeles goes to the heart of the American tradition of safeguarding free speech, no matter how unpopular, and offers one of the court’s strongest opinions limiting the constitutional freedoms of illegal immigrants. But for the government, the case marks an important victory in its effort to keep immigrants who have no legal right to be here from evading deportation on extraneous grounds.

The two-pronged decision also forbids illegal immigrants to avail themselves of the federal courts in trying to fend off deportation unless they have already exhausted every other administrative procedure offered by immigration officials. That portion of the ruling, decided by an 8 to 1 vote, upholds a 1996 federal law aimed at speeding the deportation of illegal aliens, many of whom have managed to remain in the United States for years through lengthy legal challenges.

According to Culture of Life– The U.S. Constitution recognizes the humanity of all people who are present within its borders, regardless of whether they enter legally or illegally, are temporary or permanent.  Undocumented immigrants are constitutional “persons,” but they do not have all the rights of a U.S. citizen.  The Constitution protects all immigrants (legal and illegal) against “wanton or malicious infliction of pain” by government officials and from “gross physical abuse.”  See, e.g., Castro v. Cabrera, 742 F. 3d 595 (5th Cir. 2014).  The Supreme Court also recognizes that mere presence gives all immigrants a limited set of due process rights relating to their process of immigration, deportation or detention.  See, e.g., Demore v. Kim, 538 U.S. 510 (2003).

Centuries of Supreme Court precedent establish that illegal immigrants who have not developed connections with the country do not have the full scope of affirmative liberty rights that are reserved for citizens. The vesting of the full scope of constitutional rights occurs upon naturalization when a person becomes a citizen – it does not occur when one presents oneself unlawfully at the border.