The president can bar any class of people he wants from coming here. Carter not only ban Iranians from coming here during the hostage crisis, he ordered the deportation of many thousands of students, business people, and others who were here with legal visas. People don’t seem to remember that.
I don’t think we allowed Germans, Italians, or Japanese to immigrant here during WW2. Matter of fact, thousands of German and Italian nationals here were detained in camps during WW2, not just Japanese. Many of the Germans and Italians remained in the camps until well into 1946.
A visa may be revoked at any time for any reason by a host country. The visa may be denied when the person tries to enter, and may be revoked without warning and with no reason, and the holder must comply. That is the way visas work everywhere around the world, including the United States.
I am of the belief we should be able to deny entry to the USA for any reason we wish, including the color of someone’s hair or the tone of their voice, as unreasonable as that sounds.
However, I am also of the belief that a religious test for immigration or refugees is a useless tool, depending on the “test”. If someone professes to be a muslim, I believe we should reject their immigration/visa/refugee status.
But what if they say they aren’t a muslim?
The concept of taqiya in Islam makes this a trickier proposition. Anyone can lie. But the concept of taqiya makes it not only forgivable for a muslim to denounce Islam, it is encouraged or even mandatory if the end result is that the deception advances the cause of Islam.
I have said in the past if it were in my power, I would deny entry to the US for people who are muslim or come from muslim countries, but...what if they are a coptic from Egypt, or even if they SAY they are a coptic from Egypt? Kind of like post WWII Germany, where a Nazi simply couldn’t be found anywhere.
Just because I think it might be difficult is no reason we shouldn’t try. Liberals will say we can’t do it, so we should just open the doors and let them in, which is pretty much the approach they take to everything, including sin and morality.