[zardeh]

No, he said (and this is a direct quote):

>Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on,

He later walked this claim back, but the statement was originally a ban on immigration by anyone of a given religion, not anyone from certain territories. Those claims were later walked back by other republicans, but the original claim made by Trump was for a ban on all Muslim immigration (which is on its face unconstitutional).

[refurb]

That's not a quote from Trump, but rather a quote from an article describing what he said.

This is what he said:

"When Mexico sends it people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people,"

Now I'm not going to defend the delivery. I don't think Mexico "sends" people in general, but it may happen (e.g. Mariel boat lift).

However, if the message is that bad people from Mexico are getting into the country and that should stop, I don't think anyone could argue that. Could it actually be stopped? Probably not, but it's worth trying.

[soundwave106]

FYI the quote on Muslims is a direct quote from his website.

https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/donald-j.-trump-...

[wang_li]

>ban on all Muslim immigration (which is on its face unconstitutional).

There are plenty of respected and knowledgeable legal scholars who disagree.

[zardeh]

I can find literally 0 constitutional lawyers who agree with this statement. The only people I can find who believe it might be constitutional are non-constitutional laywers quoted by Breitbart. Every other article I looked at (and it was >20) had multiple people stating that a religious test would be unconstitutional, and that the only leg they might have to stand on was that an immigrant not allowed into the US wouldn't have any way to sue the US government to raise the issue in the court system.

[wang_li]

Prior to writing my response I did a brief search and in less than five minutes found multiple such people. Here are some:

1. Eric Posner - http://ericposner.com/is-an-immigration-ban-on-muslims-uncon...

2. Peter Spiro & David Martin - http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/donald-trump-muslim-re...

3. John Banzhaf - http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/president-obama-is-wrong-on-...

And here (http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2015/12/constitution-chec...) is a discussion that points out that it's a complicated question and "led some scholars to the confident conclusion that a flat ban on Muslims would now be upheld, without judicial interference."

[zardeh]

1. "It would raise complicated questions, but might not be unconstitutional, if only because of bad precedent"

2. Isn't referring to a ban on Muslim immigration, but on a registry, which is a whole different beast

3. Banzhaf isn't a constitutional Lawyer, he's the one quoted by breitbart, btw, and what he glosses over is the very relevant 'detrimental to the united states' aspect of the Plenary Powers doctrine. It is much easier to make an argument that we should suspend immigration from a state we are at war with than from a religion, since it is practically impossible to make the argument that Muslims are more detrimental to the united states than Christians or Atheists.

and your fourth article concludes by saying

>It does seem reasonably clear that, if a proper challenger could be found, the courts very likely would be open to hear their claim. And it would not be a sure thing that they would lose in that forum.

[wang_li]

1. A more accurate restatement of what Posner wrote is "It's probably constitutional and any argument the other way has an uphill struggle." When it comes to constitutionality, SCOTUS precedent is not good or bad, it's simply is reality.

2. Fine, my bad.

3. Him being quoted by Breitbart means nothing. I mean Obama has been quoted by them. Clinton has been. Pretty much every single prominent Democrat politician has been. The only thing that is exposed by saying "breitbart" is that you disagree with the right.

And on the fourth, exactly. I'm not arguing whether it's constitutional or not. I'm saying that anyone who says that it's unconstitutional on it's face is full of it. It's clearly not obviously unconstitutional as people who study the constitution and work in the field feel that it could go either way.

[zardeh]

>When it comes to constitutionality, SCOTUS precedent is not good or bad, it's simply is reality.

It depends, there are SCOTUS rulings that (most) people consider "bad". These create precedent.

>Him being quoted by Breitbart means nothing. I mean Obama has been quoted by them. Clinton has been. Pretty much every single prominent Democrat politician has been. The only thing that is exposed by saying "breitbart" is that you disagree with the right.

No, I was pointing out that I had already addressed this specific example when I stated that "The only people I can find who believe it might be constitutional are non-constitutional laywers quoted by Breitbart." Banzhaf is the non-constitutional lawyer who was quoted by Breitbart. Now, you're quite correct that I don't find Breitbart to be a reliable source of news (although construing that to 'I disagree with the right' is a bit of gymnastics), but its also orthogonal to my point.

> I'm saying that anyone who says that it's unconstitutional on it's face is full of it.

That also very much depends. If we're talking " a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States", that is on its face unconstitutional, since it includes American Citizens. If we're talking a registry, it probably isn't. If we're talking about refugees who are Muslim, then there's the grey area. But if you take him at the words he used, it is unconstitutional, and most of the blogs have caveats that say something along the lines of "a ban on American Citizen Muslim's returning from abroad is unconstitutional on its face, so we'll ignore that and talk about refugees and immigrants"