Lindsey Graham, a GOP Presidential candidate, while on CNN “New Day” on Tuesday that Cruz has a moral imperative to speak out against Trump; that this is about personal and party character. He continues by saying that Cruz needed to “up his game” and condemn Trump’s declaration that Muslims should not be allowed in the country and yet in the next breath tells Donald Trump to go to hell.
Moral character indeed.
Trump’s proposal in response to the terrorist attack of last week in San Bernardino, CA, has shook up both sides of the aisle. Graham’s visceral response is an attack against a man and an opinion. The outraged Graham said he would rather have “Republicans lose without Trump than win with him.”
He accused him as a “race-baiting, xenophobic religious bigot.” Graham is certainly not taking his own advise of moral imperative while discussing Trump.
Find the CNN interview on the next page and decide for oneself if Graham has a legitimate point.
He’s right.
Less than 24 hours after President Obama went on national television to urge Americans to reject a war between America and Islam, Donald Trump took a step in the opposite direction and called for the “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”
While some may have viewed the president’s reaction as insufficient to meet the threat posed by terrorism, Trump’s proposal appears to be an overreach which is largely inconsistent with U.S. practices, law and precedent.
Crowd applauds Trump’s proposal
“The only respect in which religion is a legal criterion in immigration choices is that fleeing religious persecution weighs in someone’s favor on the question of being granted refugee status,” Richard Primus, a constitutional law professor at the University of Michigan law school, told CBS News. “Saying ‘no Muslims allowed’ or ‘no Christians allowed’ would not be legal. It would probably be unconstitutional.”
There are many forms non-U.S. citizens abroad file to seek temporary or permanent immigrant visas, and none require disclosure of religion. Similarly, immigrants who have been legally admitted to the U.S. and are looking to become permanent residents are also not asked about their religion.
That omission is no mistake. A 2012 U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services policy memorandum instructs immigration officers, “Avoid questions about a person’s religious beliefs or practices unless they are relevant to determine the individual’s eligibility for a benefit. Do not make any comments that might be taken as a negative reflection upon any other person, race, religion, or country.”
If an immigration official asks about an immigrant’s religion and then uses the answer as the basis for denial of relief, “that could be a constitutional violation,” Greg Chen, the director of advocacy at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, told CBS News. This comes into play especially in cases when immigrants have already been legally admitted to the U.S. because, says Chen, a court could find that their equal protection rights have been violated.
Donald Trump: Muslims don’t respect human life
The U.S. has used nationality as the basis for immigration policy in the past, but those occasions are not exactly among the country’s finer moments. The Chinese Exclusion Act banned all people of Chinese descent from coming to the U.S. for decades before being overturned in 1943.
In 1942, President Roosevelt signed an executive order that authorized the internment of 110,000 American citizens of Japanese descent. The Supreme Court ruled that decision constitutional in Korematsu v. United States, and although the ruling stands, the prevailing view is that it was a shameful decision. Dissenting Justice Robert Jackson said it “validated the principle of racial discrimination in criminal procedure.”
It’s not the kind of policy that would hold up in court today, asserted Khaled Abou El Fadl, a human rights law professor at the University of California Law School. “It was an open state of war,” he told CBS News, referring to World War II.
Tsk -tsk…
donald trump for president NO MORE GRAHAM NEAR THE WHITE HOUSE.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p36WMXgBMhE
You know how far you got with that one… -1 on your scoreboard!! Heading that way buddy!
husband Harry—–Lindsey Graham really needs to drop out of the race right along with Jeb Bush and Christie. I don’t feel that any of them are showing any real integrity here!
go trump
To hasten the Constitutional Revival and kill 100,000,000 Americans before its over, tell Mr. Trump to go to hell. There is no guarantee that the USA will not collapse with Mr. Trump as President, this nation sure as Heaven will collapse under the next democratic socialist.
Now Ms. lindsey, lets not get your drawers in a wad.
only God can do that, they kicked him out ,