Would restricting immigration from Muslims be Unconstitutional?

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@Bone

This is a huge nitpick, but I pick because I care It’s Privileges OR immunities, not AND. The AND phrasing is from Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1, the OR phrasing is from the 14th amendment and was argued in Slaughterhouse.

Oh, you.

[fire_hazard]

"Now, Therefore, I, Barack Obama, by the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, as amended (8 U.S.C. 1182(f)), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code, hereby find that the unrestricted immigrant and nonimmigrant entry into the United States of persons described in section 1 of this proclamation would be detrimental to the interests of the United States. I therefore hereby proclaim that:

Section 1. The entry into the United States, as immigrants or nonimmigrants, of the following persons is hereby suspended: "

Proclamation 8697

From the American Presidency Project.

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=90694

I thought this was interesting.

[Chronos]

That’s prohibiting immigration by terrorists and war criminals, not by members of any particular religion, nationality, race, or any of the other criteria we’re talking about here. I doubt that’s very controversial, though it’s not exactly easy to enforce.

[fire_hazard]

@Chronos

That’s prohibiting immigration by terrorists and war criminals, not by members of any particular religion, nationality, race, or any of the other criteria we’re talking about here. I doubt that’s very controversial, though it’s not exactly easy to enforce.

The point I was making is that…

"(f) Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate. "

Note that I am learning here, I am not American and the laws there have no effect on me.

[coremelt]

I think its a pretty irrelevant question, because you could wriggle around the issue without directly banning muslims from immigration. A Potential Trump government could set a policy that immigrants from muslim majority countries have to show a higher standard or that they are a persecuted minority (eg not a muslim) to be considered. Name the countries in the policy and not the religion and you pretty effectively do the same thing.

There could also be a nebulous “willingness to adapt to US culture” criteria for immigration which could be used arbitrarily, again without naming muslims specifically.

[Ambivalid]

Just a friendly correction: it’s moo-slim. Mooslim. At least according to every anchor on MSNBC.

[md2000]

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

I’m not second guessing. I’m first-guessing. And the default assumption is always that the existing case law controls. That’s why nobody litigates constitutional issues under the Privileges & Immunities Clause (with a very few exceptions) even though pretty much everyone agrees the Slaughterhouse Cases were wrongly decided. And why nobody challenges baseball’s exclusive antitrust exemption even though SCOTUS itself said the underlying case was wrongly decided.

Yes, they find a way to reverse earlier “bad” decisions without actually coming out and reversing them. “Can’t yell ‘Fire’ in a crowded theatre” for example, was effectively reversed within a decade or two; or the earlier mentioned Brown decision… Sorry, yes, the whole scenario is hypothetical, but my point is you never know - in even less controversial cases, there’s always argument which way the judges will rule.(or rather, the majority)