The U.S. Supreme Court has not addressed whether undocumented immigrants have all the constitutional protections that U.S. citizens enjoy; however, in 1945 the high court did hold that “Freedom of speech and of press is accorded aliens residing in this country” (Bridges v. Wixon, 326 U.S. 135, 148).

In his concurring opinion, Justice Frank Murphy went even further, saying that “once an alien lawfully enters and resides in this country he becomes invested with the rights guaranteed by the Constitution to all people within our borders. Such rights include those protected by the First and the Fifth Amendments …” (161).

Also, in the 1982 case Plyler v. Doe (457 U.S. 202), the Supreme Court said the children of undocumented immigrants have the right to a public education.

However, the courts, including the Supreme Court, have more recently stated that these protections may be limited. In 1990, the Supreme Court said cases establishing constitutional protections extended to aliens “are constitutional decisions of this Court expressly according differing protection to aliens than to citizens, based on our conclusion that the particular provisions in question were not intended to extend to aliens in the same degree as to citizens” (United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U.S. 259).

In addition, the Court historically has afforded Congress great deference in the area of immigration and naturalization. For example, in 1999 the Supreme Court ruled in a case involving the deportation of eight resident aliens with ties to “international terrorist and communist organizations” that “as a general matter … an alien unlawfully in this country has no constitutional right to assert selective enforcement as a defense against his deportation” (Reno v. American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Comm., 525 U.S. 471, 488).

In 2002, in Hoffman Plastic Compounds v. NLRB (535 U.S. 137, the Supreme Court ruled that an undocumented worker could not receive back pay, as per the National Labor Relations Act, after he was unlawfully fired for participating in union organizing activities because he was not entitled to employment in the first place. (The NLRB awards back pay as a remedy for workers fired for participating in such activity.) This ruling is seen by some as limiting the rights of assembly and association of undocumented workers.