In a truly shocking and facially unconstitutional plan, Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump is calling for a “total and complete shutdown” of Muslims entering the United States. The plan would violate a host of domestic and international protections, as I discussed today with the Washington Post.
Trump stated that “[i]t is obvious to anybody the hatred [among Muslims] is beyond comprehension. Where this hatred comes from and why, we will have to determine. Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life.”
Trump said he would ease the ban in the case of Muslims serving in the U.S. military and allow them to return home. that is still well short of constitutional — or rational — plan. For Muslim citizens, such a plan would be grossly unconstitutional under the first and fifth amendments. The latter prohibits The depriving of individuals of “life, liberty, or property,” without due process of the law and an implicit guarantee of equal protection of the laws.
It is certainly true that the constitutional protections often turn on whether someone is consider a “person” under the United States Constitution. In Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982), the Supreme Court struck down a Texas statute denying funding for education to unauthorized immigrant children. Being present within the United States does afford protections of due process and equal protection. Outside of the country immigrants without resident status face a more difficult challenge. However, international law and conventions afford protections for travel and religion.
The law would harken back to the disgraceful period of the Chinese Exclusion laws. We have long rejected immigration limits based discriminatory classes of this kind. Indeed, the Immigration and Nationality Act protects potential refugees facing “fear of persecution” on account of their “religion.” Yet under President Trump we would now formally impose such a discriminatory element, a move that would make the United States a pariah around the world and immediately extinguish our relations with Islamic countries.
Immigration policy has cleared resonated as a draw for Trump. However, this proposal would openly embrace raw prejudice and blind rage as motivating factors for governmental policy. It would clearly fail in denying reentry for citizens or residents. As for non-citizens abroad, they are accorded protections under international law. Under Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, people have the right to leave or enter a country and that “everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.” There is no doubt murky aspects to such rights and a long-standing question of their enforceability. However, this proposal rests on flagrant religious discrimination against one group. It seeks to “protect” the United States by denying the very essence of who we are as a nation.
Olly
1, December 8, 2015 at 12:12 pm
Po,
Please identify the Christian leaders anywhere in the world that are calling on the destruction of all non-Christians. I will join you in calling them out so that we can rid the world of them.
I’ll wait.
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Red herring, Olly!
Either refute my argument or have the decency to bite your lips and move on.
It is absolutely within the Constitution to ban non-citizen Muslims from entering the country. This can also be accomplished by banning immigration from certain countries.
Prof Turley fails to discuss the threat coming from within the Muslim community that threatens all Western nations. There is no discussion of the no-go zones in European cities. And there is no discussion of the governments that sponsor the extremist ideologies that are at the root of the threat.
What do the lawyers here say about using the current law allowing this restriction?
(8 U.S. Code § 1182 – Inadmissible aliens)
Po,
Please identify the Christian leaders anywhere in the world that are calling on the destruction of all non-Christians. I will join you in calling them out so that we can rid the world of them.
I’ll wait.
And stick to the topic, po.
The topic is Muslims killing people in the US (again) and how to stop it.
“We know this much: there has been 360 mass shootings this year”
We know that is a lie.
DBQ,
I agree. The grubers of the world will buy what Trump is selling without question. If they aren’t buying into Trump it’s because they’ve already bought Clinton. Somewhere in-between exists the skeptics that have a constitutional worldview and they aren’t buying anything that doesn’t pass constitutional scrutiny.
We know this much: there has been 360 mass shootings this year, 2 were by a Muslim!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am waiting for us to go after all the other groups concerned.
And how many are they? The majority was from white men from a Christian background.
I say we deport white men from christian backgrounds and stop them from coming through. They are at war with us.
And regarding being at war, yes, we have been at war with the Muslim/Arabo world for decades…we are currently bombing 13 Muslim countries, killing countless civilians in the process.
4 million Iraqis died from the illegal invasion of Iraq.
What, did we think there would be no blowback to it?
That we can build a whole industry out of bombing Muslims and expect we would be safe from its karmic energy?
Fascinating to me how Al Qaeda lured us into financially bankrupting ourselves in this war on terror, and ISIS is luring us into morally bankrupting ourselves just as eagerly.
While all we needed to do with be juster and fairer and stop purveying violence unabetted upon the globe.
TinEar
1, December 8, 2015 at 2:09 am
I don’t know that the U.S. would become a “pariah” for restricting Muslim immigration. Japan allows Muslims to visit as tourists but they are not allowed to become citizens and
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Tinear, I call BS on that. That’s the lie that’s making the rounds in islamophobic circles.
People people people……
Donald Trump is trolling you and doing a really great job of it! I’m in awe of his skills.
This is the art of the deal. Your opening gambit is always one that you have no real hope of achieving. Trump knows it is impossible to prevent Citizens…legal citizens from leaving or re-entering the U.S.
The opening gambit is to get their (your opponent and your supporters) attention. Once you have their attention, then you can talk, negotiate and come up with less than half of what you opened with. This then gets you what you wanted in the first place, because you KNEW that your opening gambit was impossible, ridiculous and would never be accepted.
Your opponent thinks he has won because you didn’t get what you asked for…but you have won because you got what you want. Everyone is happy.
Everyone should read The Art of War by Sun Tzu. This is exactly what Donald Trump is doing and what the art of the deal is all about. This why he is a successful business man.
Masterful!
Anyone who has been in sales knows this tactic.
“We have lost all reason and independent rational thinking in this country. I am a liberal/socialist atheist and I vote every chance I get.”
There, I fixed it for you Jeff. And I don’t count myself among your collective We. Thanks.
The U.S. Constitution protects only AMERICAN citizens and residents. Foreign citizens who wish to immigrate to the U.S. do not have ANY rights under the U.S. Constitution. It is completely inapplicable to them. So if any foreignor is denied entry to the U.S. for ANY reason, his Constitutional rights have not been violated, as he has no Constitutional rights to begin with.
THIS cannot be stressed enough. Non Citizens do not have Constitutional rights.
Ditto Olly.
Trump may be many things but he is no idiot. I believe he is the Republicans version of Obama in that his rhetoric resonates with the emotions of his growing base. IF what he proposes on any issue happens to be constitutional it is only by coincidence.
Secure borders, absolutely. Put a freeze on our immigration policy and do not allow ANYONE in until a policy is in place that meets our national security interests. If our government wants to risk American lives by doing nothing different then they should immediately have their careers put on the clock.
I do not understand the views here that oppose current US law (noted above) that explicitly allows restrictions against aliens who are supporters of terrorism or totalitarianism..
Under Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, people have the right to leave or enter a country and that “everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.”
Gee. I don’t recall this being in the United States Constitution. When did we vote on this? This seems to state that countries should have no borders, no sovereign rights, no right to security and that we are all just one big happy New World order.
Our country has a right to determine who should be allowed to enter the country to reside and to work.
I have no problem with allowing people to leave 🙂 This includes companies that want to leave. Do you support forcing companies to remain in the U. S. or punishing them for moving overseas? If so, that would be somewhat contradictory to Article 13.
A person who is LEGALLY in the U. S. and who has been thoroughly vetted previously should of course be allowed free passage in and out of the country. However, we do have the right to refuse entry as pointed out by KCFlemming. Those are our laws. AND we are a sovereign nation….so far. We also have the right to continually reexamine the people who are entering and reentering from countries with which we are at war.
Yes. I know we are not at war with countries and armies who wear a sanctioned uniform as in with the Nazi’s or with the Japanese as in WWII …..(yet) but at war with ideologies. So, we should examine those and the connections between those people who are in league with the ideology which has declared war upon us.
Politically correct. No and who cares.
Lawyers may actually like Trump as president. He’ll sue the house & senate if he doesn’t get bills passed. How’s $1000/hour for litigation fees sound?
Let’s say 1 M&M out of every bag is poisonous.
But you can’t tell which one.
Would you still eat them?
There is nothing UN-Constitutional about pausing immigration from countries that are sending enemies into ours to kill us. We are not required to have open borders and allow anyone and everyone without exception to come into this country. To do so is suicide. We are at WAR people. Wake up!
I would be in favor of pausing ALL immigration until we can come up with a system that will properly vet immigrants who are temporarily here. Until we can vet those who are applying for permanent residence. Pausing ALL immigration, not stopping immigration. PAUSING.
The FIRST job of the government is to protect the citizens, not to be a big daddy and hand out welfare to the world. The first job is to make sure that we are safe. To do that we MUST know who is coming into this country and for what purpose.
So YES. Pause immigration. I would also say begin to RE examine those who have come in already. Like the Farooks. Like the Boston Bombers. We should deport those who have illegally come into the country and who are criminals. This is low hanging fruit.
People may make fun of Trump, but he is stating the obvious. Is he bombastic? Yup. However, if it were NOT for Trump loudly and brashly stating these things, do you think that the RINO’s or DEM’s would even be talking about immigration? Nope. They would still be pussyfooting around the topic and playing it politically safe. Without Trump it would be business as usual and we would continue our slow slide into oblivion and dimmitude.
Trump is just saying what WE are thinking out here in fly over country and stating what we know. Our leaders do NOT care about us. They would rather let in illegals to steal our jobs and drive down wages. They would rather let in terrorists to kill us……all in the name of being politically correct or trying to appear magnanimous and maintain the illusion of being caring. When we, the citizens, start to wake up and object to being the targets of illegal alien criminals or the targets of Islamic terrorists, we are told we are racist, redneck, knuckle dragging goobers who don’t know our place and …oh by the way…..we want your guns.
The American people know what is up and we see who is looking out for OUR interests. It certainly isn’t Obama or anyone who supports illegal immigration or who supports the unrestricted, un-vetted, un-examined importation of people from countries where terrorists are trained and where terrorism is funded. Yes. I’m looking at you Jeb! and you Rubio and most of the liberal progressives.
I might add if the government doesn’t begin to look out for US….we will have to look out for ourselves. And we can do it.
Current US law allows such restrictions.
U.S. Code › Title 8 › Chapter 12 › Subchapter II › Part II › § 1182
8 U.S. Code § 1182 – Inadmissible aliens