[middie]

No person, that includes everyone within our borders, legal or otherwise, may be denied equal protection of the laws. If that requires medical care, education, law enforcement protection, food stamps, etc., then so be it. The Constitution says what it says and it commands that equal protection be recognized and complied with. The term ''no person'' is not ambiguous. The drafters could have replaced that term with ''no citizen,'' but chose to be inclusive rather than selectively exclusive.

If the need should arise for someone to argue this point, or the 14th Amendment's birthright clause, I'm available. But there are far superior constitutional scholars well prepared to undertake that position.

[EDINVA]

I guess I am missing how food stamps and free medical care and education - concepts inconceivable to the Founders - qualify under the equal protection clause. Is that in some penumbra ? There's a difference between "laws," a fairly unambiguous term, and "entitlements." All citizens are not entitled to food stamps, or other social programs. Those entitlements were only conferred upon illegal alients by a relatively liberal Congress in the late 80's. It is not a right enshrined in the Constitution.