Had the Founders meant citizen, they would have written "citizen". They did not, they wrote "person". As to its application to people in other countries, seeing that the United States seems to think our laws apply extraterritorially to people like Manuel Noriega and Julian Assange, I'm not sure who these "people in other countries that we have not authorization over" would be.
Here's an inconvenient truth for certain members on this board
The U.S. Constitution is a contract
By Matthew G. AnderssonPresident Trump is getting a lot of unwarranted media criticism for stating that he isn’t a lawyer who can give a formal constitutional law opinion on due process for illegal border crossers.
His administration rightfully seeks to deport them.
But even for the progressive Left, it might be fair to give President Trump some benefit of the doubt: the Constitution’s meaning may not be readily apparent even, or especially, to lawyers, and otherwise hinges on one word.
Both the 5th and 14th Amendments refer to “persons” including in due process. But what does “person” mean? Moreover, what exactly is a due process?
The definition of a person, is in the Constitution’s Preamble which is crucial to constantly reference when the rest of the Constitution is read.
“We the People,” is followed by the prepositional phrase “of the United States,” which technically creates belonging. Those who belong also declare an intent to reinforce their belonging by creating a “more perfect union.” This makes persons those who have entered into a perfected contract with a corporation called the United States.
Those persons then empower representatives who act on their behalf, through elections. Voting in elections is a right reserved constitutionally, for citizens. Persons, therefore, refers to citizens who have given themselves rights as specific persons in their own constitution (preceded by a Declaration that created separateness from others).
Even if you assert that the Amendments are a separate Bill of Rights, those were originally written to actually reinforce allegiance to the Constitution for the anti-federalists, and some must also be referenced to their specific context in slavery emancipation. The 14th Amendment converted what was then deemed legal human property under U.S. contract, into contract freedom. Strictly speaking, illegal immigrants are not in any contract relationship in U.S. law, which can then be converted into a release from obligation.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/05/the_u_s_constitution_is_a_contract.html