CHAPEL HILL - Xenophobia (the Greek name given to fear, mistrust and hatred of foreigners and things foreign) hovers over our nation, breeding mean-spirited laws targeting illegal Mexican immigrants.

In North Carolina, both the Democratic and Republican candidates for governor and the incumbent attorney general seek to bar illegal aliens from our community colleges. Unfortunately, such "nativism" is not new in our history.

Even the venerable Ben Franklin in his younger years asked, in terms that resonate today, why recent German immigrants "should be suffered to swarm into our settlements" and "establish their language and manners to the exclusion of ours."

But, on the bright side, then came our Declaration of Independence ringing out that "all men are created equal," our motto E Pluribus Unum, our Fourteenth Amendment's promise of "equal protection" to any "person" and our Statue of Liberty, whose torch beckons the "huddled masses," the "tempest tost" to our shores.

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TWO STRANDS IN THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION shield the recent arrivals to our shores from hostile local laws.

First, the Constitution gives Congress alone exclusive authority to establish a "Uniform Rule of Naturalization" and to set immigration policy. States are not free to go their own way.

Second, the Fourteenth Amendment denies all states and political subdivisions the authority to "deprive any person" "the equal protection of the laws." Armed with either or both of these provisions, the Supreme Court stands firm in defense against state anti-alien laws.

Thus, in education, Texas cannot deny children of illegal immigrants the right to attend public schools. Denying hapless children a basic education raised the specter of a permanent caste of untouchables and condemned the children to lives of peonage. A "shadow population" of millions of undocumented aliens exists within our borders, but aliens, even though in the country unlawfully, are still "persons" protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.

Nor could New York's University of Buffalo deny financial assistance to an alien because he refused to renounce his French citizenship, nor could the University of Maryland deny resident aliens in-state tuition because their parents were employed by international agencies. Why? Because the "aliens" are "persons" entitled to equal protection and because Congress' supremacy in immigration matters pre-empts state policies.

In employment, California "may not deny noncitizen Japanese the right to farm," or engage in commercial fishing. Arizona may not set quotas on the percentage of aliens employed; Texas may not bar aliens from the profession of notary public, nor Puerto Rico from civil engineering, nor Connecticut from the practice of law.

Nor may a state deny welfare benefits to aliens. Arizona denied Carmen Richardson health benefits because she had not resided in the state for 15 years. Pennsylvania denied Elsie Leger public assistance because of her alien status. Richardson sued Arizona, Leger sued Pennsylvania.

Both states argued for a right to favor its own citizens over aliens in the distribution of limited resources "such as welfare benefits." The U.S. Supreme Court said no, that aliens are "persons," protected by the Fourteenth Amendment from unequal treatment, and that Congress has the sole voice in immigration matters.

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THESE SUPREME COURT DECISIONS ARE ROOTED in the 1886 Chinese Laundryman case, in which San Francisco permitted whites to operate laundries in houses of wood but required Chinese people to operate in buildings made of more expensive stone.

A unanimous Supreme Court held that the discriminatory law was applied with an "evil eye and unequal hand" and denied the equal protection "secured to the Chinese as to all other persons" by the "broad and benign provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment."

By oath or affirmation, public officials are bound to support the supreme law of the land. Officials who deny educational benefits to aliens compromise their constitutional oath. Shame.

(Daniel H. Pollitt is Kenan professor emeritus in the UNC-CH School of Law.)