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.
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.