Yes, the First Amendment Protects Free Speech for Noncitizens

First Amendment

Yes, the First Amendment Protects Free Speech for Noncitizens

"Freedom of speech and of press is accorded aliens residing in this country," according to a 1945 Supreme Court ruling.

Damon Root | From the April 2026 issue

Share on FacebookShare on XShare on RedditShare by emailPrint friendly versionCopy page URL Add Reason to Google

Media Contact & Reprint Requests

(Illustration: master1305/iStock)

The First Amendment states that the government "shall make no law….abridging the freedom of speech." But one prominent conservative judge, whose name has been mentioned as a potential nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Donald Trump, thinks that protection against government censorship may not apply to noncitizens in the United States.

Is the judge right?

Writing for himself in the December 2025 case of United States v. Escobar-
Temal, Judge Amul Thapar of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit asserted that "neither history nor precedent indicates that the First Amendment definitively applies to aliens."

Yet in Bridges v. Wixon (1945), the Supreme Court unambiguously stated that "freedom of speech and of press is accorded aliens residing in this country." That case centered on an Australian immigrant and labor union activist named Harry Bridges. He faced deportation because of his alleged "affiliation" with the Communist Party. "It is clear that Congress desired to have the country rid of those aliens who embraced the political faith of force and violence," the Court said. But "the literature published by [Bridges], the utterances made by him," the ruling noted, revealed only "a militant advocacy of the cause of trade-unionism" and "did not teach or advocate or advise the subversive conduct condemned by the statute." The otherwise lawful speech of this noncitizen was thus "entitled to that [First Amendment] protection."

Thapar's misguided opinion also failed to grapple with the fact that eliminating freedom of speech for noncitizens necessarily means citizens will suffer free speech harms, too. As Frederick Douglass explained in a notable 1860 address to an anti-slavery meeting in Boston, "to suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker."

Here's one way to think about it: If a green card holder stands on a soapbox in a public park in a U.S. city and criticizes the actions of the federal government, American citizens who wish to hear that noncitizen have a right to do so without government infringement.

Contra Thapar, the First Amendment was designed to protect both sides of what Douglass memorably called the "right to speak and hear."

This article originally appeared in print under the headline "Yes, the First Amendment Protects Noncitizens."

Start your day with Reason. Get a daily brief of the most important stories and trends every weekday morning when you subscribe to Reason Roundup.

Δ

Email

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Email(Required)

Subscribe

NEXT: Nuclear Power Regulators Scrap Rule Saying New Reactors Must Withstand 9/11-Style Plane Crashes

Damon Root is a senior editor at Reason and the author of A Glorious Liberty: Frederick Douglass and the Fight for an Antislavery Constitution (Potomac Books). His next book, Emancipation War: The Fall of Slavery and the Coming of the Thirteenth Amendment (Potomac Books), will be published in June 2026.

Share on FacebookShare on XShare on RedditShare by emailPrint friendly versionCopy page URL Add Reason to Google

Media Contact & Reprint Requests

Show Comments (1)

© Reason.com

visit website