Category Archives: Constitution

Of Course The President’s Ban Is Constitutional

Constitution, Donald Trump, IMMIGRATION, Islam, Justice

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. —The 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act, Section, 212(f).

President Donald Trump’s moratorium on the entry of all refugees into the United States, and “an order for ‘extreme vetting’ as a condition for entry for some foreign citizens,” is constitutional. This is old hat; discussed, too, in my book, “The Trump Revolution: The Donald’s Creative Destruction Deconstructed.” (June, 2016).

No fan of the executive order, constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley says he disagrees with his “colleagues at George Washington University Law School and other law schools that the order is clearly unconstitutional”:

…Courts are not supposed to rule on the merits of such laws but their legality. I think that the existing precedent favors Trump.

First, this is not a religious ban. When it was first discussed on the campaign, it was described as a ban on Muslims. This is not a religious ban. It certainly can be opposed as having that effect but there are a wide array of Muslim countries not covered by the ban and would not be impacted by the restrictions. A court cannot in my view treat this order as carrying out a religious ban as it is currently written. (Trump’s comments that he wants to prioritize Christians could raise more compelling arguments of religious discrimination).

Second, the law largely suspends entry pending the creation of new vetting procedures. That is based on a national security determination made by the President. Courts have generally deferred to such judgments. A president’s authority is at its zenith on our borders. Hillary Clinton herself campaigned on carefully vetting refugees (though she favors increasing such entries). In a November 2015 national security speech at the Council on Foreign Relations, Clinton said “So yes, we do need to be vigilant in screening and vetting any refugees from Syria, guided by the best judgment of our security professionals in close coordination with our allies and partners.”

Finally, there is precedent for limited entry from particular countries going back to some of the earliest periods in this country. The earlier immigration laws include the 1875 Page Act which focused on Asian immigrants and those believes to be engaged in prostitution or considered convicts in their native countries. Then there was the infamous 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. Then there were other measures limiting immigration from particular areas like the 1906 “Gentleman’s Agreement” (Japanese aliens) and the or the 1917 Immigration Act (“Asiatic Barred Zone”). In 1921 and 1924, Congress passed the “Quota Acts” limiting entry from disfavored countries. of nations from whom no further immigrants would be accepted. In every case, immigration policy continued to develop as a series of widening, discriminatory exclusions. It was not until 1965 that we broke from our long and troubling history is such discrimination. However, The 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act contains section, 212(f) that gives sweeping authority on the exclusion of certain aliens: …

… READ THE REST.


The Lobbyists:

UPDATED: An ‘Ebullient’ President-Elect Who Cares About The Constitution As A Timeless Document

Barack Obama, Constitution, Donald Trump, EU, Europe, Founding Fathers, IMMIGRATION, Individual Rights, Natural Law

Our magnificent President-elect Donald Trump spoke to libertarian Judge Andrew Napolitano about constitutional originalists—who is; who isn’t—and the meaning of the Constitution.

Mr. Trump also asked Judge Napolitano about how you stop The Bureaucracy from legislating. As you all know, we live under a Managerial State, where the bureaucracy has vast discretion to pass and enforce laws that are never vetted by our so-called law-makers and representatives. These cockroaches have allowed it.

The Chevron Doctrine:

Did Barack Obama ever make such an inquiry? No. Barack Obama was not in the habit of hiding how he felt about the US Constitution. As much as he disliked the philosophical foundations of the republic, the president seemed to know a bit about the intent. Here’s Senator Barack Obama talking about the document Republicans seldom mention and Democrats deem dated:

… as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution … generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf, and that hasn’t shifted and one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court-focused I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change. In some ways we still suffer from that. I’m not optimistic about bringing about major redistributive change through the courts. You know, the institution just isn’t structured that way.

The president recognized and rejected “the Constitution as a charter of negative liberties.” Because of the obstacles the Constitution poses to “redistributive justice,” community organizing à la Obama aims at achieving extra-constitutional change.

MORE GREATNESS FROM TRUMP:

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UPDATED (11/15): A Trump Foreign-Policy Doctrine Must Put ‘America First’

Constitution, Donald Trump, Foreign Policy, Neoconservatism

Too many Republicans cozying up to President-elect Donald Trump, or orbiting him for positions in his administration, are talking up an interventionist foreign policy. You hear non-stop chatter about, and I paraphrase, “How Trump understands that a peaceful world is contingent on America’s active role in the world.” However, “the foreign policy views [Trump] espoused,” warns Pat Buchanan, “were as crucial to his election as his views on trade and the border”:

The opportunity is at hand for Trump to reconfigure U.S. foreign policy to the world we now inhabit, and to the vital interests of the United States.

What should Trump say?

“As our Cold War presidents from Truman to Reagan avoided World War III, I intend to avert Cold War II. We do not regard Russia or the Russian people as enemies of the United States, and we will work with President Putin to ease the tensions that have arisen between us.

“For our part, NATO expansion is over, and U.S. forces will not be deployed in any former republic of the Soviet Union.

“While Article 5 of NATO imposes an obligation to regard an attack upon any one of 28 nations as an attack on us all, in our Constitution, Congress, not some treaty dating back to before most Americans were even born, decides whether we go to war.

“The compulsive interventionism of recent decades is history. How nations govern themselves is their own business. While, as JFK said, we prefer democracies and republics to autocrats and dictators, we will base our attitude toward other nations upon their attitude toward us.

“No other nation’s internal affairs are a vital interest of ours.

“Europeans have to be awakened to reality. We are not going to be forever committed to fighting their wars. They are going to have to defend themselves, and that transition begins now.

“In Syria and Iraq, our enemies are al-Qaida and ISIS. We have no intention of bringing down the Assad regime, as that would open the door to Islamic terrorists. We have learned from Iraq and Libya.”

THE REST: “A Trump Doctrine — ‘America First’”

UPDATE (11/15): Rand Paul is on it, too.

Poor Whites Will Be Further Disenfranchised Under Hillary

Affirmative Action, Constitution, Hillary Clinton, IMMIGRATION, Race, Racism

“Disenfranchisement Of Poor Whites Under Hillary” is the new column, now on  Townhall.com,  America’s “top source for conservative commentary.” An excerpt:

“Strengthening families” is big in Hillary Clinton’s immigration platform—not American families, but families of undocumented Democrats. To that end—and “within her first 100 days in office”—Hillary has vowed to “introduce comprehensive immigration reform with a pathway to full and equal citizenship.” These newly minted Democrats will be speedily naturalized (likely in time for Hillary’s second term). “All families” will be granted “affordable health care,” a privilege very many Americans are without.

Yet another political grant of privilege Americans don’t have, unless pigmentally endowed, is affirmative action. The throngs of immigrants and refugees—whose entry into the US Mrs. Clinton will accelerate, and whose numbers she’ll increase, should she become the next president—will benefit from affirmative action.  

Although the federal bureaucratic behemoth acts otherwise, the American Constitution “gave the government no license to set quotas for hiring personnel by private enterprise or admitting students to institutions of higher learning,” remarked Richard Pipes in “Property and Freedom: The Story of How Through The Centuries Private Ownership has Promoted Liberty and the Rule of Law” (2000). The institutionalized American quota culture has been imposed by administrative fiat, courtesy of “The Power Elite” and the engorged administrative state under which Americans labor.  

For the purposes of conferring affirmative-action privileges, civil servants have compiled over the decades an ever-accreting list of protected groups, “as distinct from whites.” In addition to blacks, the list entails mainly minorities such as Hispanics—Chileans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Dominicans, and Mexicans—Pacific Islanders, American Indians, Asian/Indians, Filipinos, Vietnamese and Cambodians.  

Affirmative action was ostensibly crafted to correct “the injustices endured by black Americans at the hands of their own government … not only during the period of slavery but also in the Jim Crow era that followed.” The policy took a very different turn, starting in 1965, “when new immigration laws dramatically altered the demographic makeup of the U.S.” In short, the policies of racial redress were extended to all “people of color,” shifting “from remediation toward discrimination, this time against whites.” 

It goes without saying that “those who came to this country in recent decades from Asia, Latin America and Africa did not suffer discrimination from our government, and in fact have frequently been the beneficiaries of special government programs,” averred Senator Jim Webb, in a 2010 Wall Street Journal article, titled “Diversity and the Myth of White Privilege.” “The same cannot be said of many hard-working white Americans, including those whose roots in America go back more than 200 years.”  …

… Read the rest. “Disenfranchisement Of Poor Whites Under Hillary” is  now on Townhall.com.