Top Scholars Say Trump Muslim Immigrant Ban May Be Constitutional

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/12/08/top-scholars-say-trumps-muslim-immigrant-ban-could-be ^ | Dec. 8, 2015 | Steven Nelson

[B4Ranch]

Almost every public figure appraising Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump s proposed moratorium on Muslim immigration and travel to the U.S. has reacted with horror, but the ban would not necessarily be unconstitutional, experts say.

Recent U.S. immigration history, in fact, is full of examples of discrimination against minority groups. Throughout the Cold War, non-citizen socialists were deported, and gays could be booted as "sexual deviants" until 1990. An entry ban on HIV-positive people wasn't fully repealed until 2010.

Harvard Law School professor Gerald Neuman, co-director of the school s human rights program, says the idea is “discriminatory in a fashion that s totally inconsistent with constitutional principles.”

But, he says, “I can see the courts saying the plenary power requires such relaxed judicial review that they would uphold it – it’s possible.”

The plenary power doctrine, explains UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh, “basically says all bets are off, constitutionally speaking, when it comes to admission of aliens to the United States, [and] historically we have discriminated based on race, national origin and speech.”

[TheShaz]

So......You are saying that Trump did his JEDI MIND TRICK........again?

BOOM!

[LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget]

I swear, every time the Trumpinator takes on an issue and the p#%syfied media pees their panties I have to step away from my keyboard. Got to go make popcorn.

Nom nom nom nom.

This election cycle is just plain fun. Neither of my favorite candidates are out, and they seem to be colluding.

[MotorCityBuck]

Ryans an Ass. Trump will steamroll a clown like him, along with the Congress. He will slap them around like the Republicans and the media. Thru the use of the media he will shine the spotlight on whatever target he wants. These cowards will cower in fear as they always do.
FUPR F the Republican Party.
Go Trump.

[unlearner]

We ought to prohibit Saudis from funding the building of mosques.

We could use the standards of the country of origin as a guideline for who to allow in.

How many Christian churches do they have in their country?

[Jim Noble]

This is so obviously “constitutional”, I don’t know how anyone minimally familiar with the Constitution could ever think otherwise.

[Jim Noble]

What? We’re no longer a sovereign national entity?

The enemy's greatest weakness is overconfidence.

They believe that, through subversion and a web of treaties and agreements that we are no longer sovereign in the sense you are using the word.

[exit82]

From Twitter:
Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump 1h1 hour ago
A very big poll is coming out at 6 PM in New Hampshire. Will be very interested in the results.

[Amendment10]

"Harvard Law School professor Gerald Neuman, co-director of the school s human rights program, says the idea is “discriminatory in a fashion that s totally inconsistent with constitutional principles.”"

FR: Never Accept the Premise of Your Opponents Argument

To begin with, although Trumps heart is certainly in the right place for the nation, constitutionally low-information Trump is probably clueless, as all the candidates probably are imo, that the states have never delegated to the feds, expressly via the Constitution, the specific power to regulate immigration.

More specifically, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison had clarified that only the states have the 10th Amendment-protected power to regulate immigration. So immigrants have only those protections afforded to them by the states imo, not the Constitution.

And not only have the feds unconstitutionally exercised 10th Amendment-protected state power to refuse immigrants for various reasons as indicated in the OP, but before the states began letting the feds manage immigration without properly amending the Constitution to delegate such power to the feds, note that the states have historically had discriminatory immigration policies. (Send Irish Catholics back to Ireland for example.)

So contrary to what the Constitution-ignoring feds are hypocritically arguing about Trumps immigration policies ”probably” being unconstitutional, as more evidence that the states can discriminate against immigrants on various criteria, note that only US citizens are protected by the Constitutions privileges and immunities as evidenced by the following excerpts from official sources.

• 14th Amendment, Section 1: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States [emphasis added]; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

• "Mr. Speaker, that the scope and meaning of the limitations imposed by the first section, fourteenth amendment of the Constitution may be more fully understood, permit me to say that the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States [emphasis added], as contradistinguished from citizens of a State, are chiefly defined in the first eight amendments to the Constitution of the United States.” - John Bingham, Appendix to the Congressional Globe

• ” 3. The right of suffrage was not necessarily one of the privileges or immunities of citizenship [emphasis added] before the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, and that amendment does not add to these privileges and immunities. It simply furnishes additional guaranty for the protection of such as the citizen already had.” - Minor v. Happersett, 1874.

[odawg]

I am not a top scholar. But I can read, and Trump’s ban is definitely Constitutional.

I also know what the word “infringe” means, as in “shall not be”.

[pa_dweller]

Harvard Law School professor Gerald Neuman, co-director of the school s human rights program, says the idea is 'discriminatory in a fashion that s totally inconsistent with constitutional principles.'

Principles schminciples. Notice he doesn't claim it's unconstitutional.

The question is: Does or does not a sovereign nation have the power to set its own laws and determine who will or will not be permitted to enter?

[Yardstick]

The word “probably” glows like neon in the middle of Jeh Johnson’s statement condemning Trump. That hedge tells you the Democrats realize Trump may very well be on solid ground legally and constitutionally.