Professor Peter Spiro, a globally recognized authority on U.S. constitutional and immigration law, has been an influential voice in the debate over President Trump’s immigration order. Gathered below are his most recent media appearances discussing the order.
Professor Jan Ting appeared on KCRW’s “To the Point” show to discuss Donald Trump’s proposed moratorium on Muslims entering the United States. The moratorium has been called both un-American and unconstitutional, but some legal precedents may surprise you. Listen to the Podcast
Donald Trump has built his presidential campaign on demonizing immigrant and religious minorities without regard for the damage he instills. At Tuesday night’s Republican presidential debate it was more of the same. In the wake of Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric, there have been a record number of threats, harassment and vandalism to mosques, as well as attacks on individuals perceived to be Muslim. Muslim-Americans report feeling fearful, and anxious for themselves and their families. It is a difficult time for law-abiding Muslims in America. Two decades of public health scholarship confirms that this type of hatred directed at one group of people, along with the harassment, discrimination and segregation that follow, has a pernicious impact on health. Hatred stigmatizes and marginalizes its targets, limits access to life’s opportunities and reduces the freedom to freely partake in life’s enjoyments. It can incite threats and violence and internalized self-hatred. The constant stress of being targeted risks cardiovascular disease, hypertension, anxiety and depression. As the nation aspires to achieve health equity, the impact of Trump’s disparaging divisive rhetoric will …
Prof. Jan Ting was one of two law professors to talk with The Daily Caller about Presidential candidate Donald Trump’s recent Muslim immigration proposal. Ting explained that the Supreme Court’s decisions since ruling unanimously in favor of the legality of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1889 have upheld the authority of the political branches — executive and legislative — to make immigration law as they see fit and to exclude foreigners on grounds that would not be applicable to American citizens. Read the full story.
Professor Peter Spiro is quoted in this article by the Temple Daily News on why executive actions by President Obama could give future presidents political cover, particularly in the area of immigration. Read the Full Article.
The hysterical response to Donald Trump’s proposal to restrict Muslim immigration is unwarranted. Contrary to the claims of Trump’s critics, the power to suspend the admission of “any aliens or any class of aliens into the United States” is expressly reserved by statute to the president whenever the president finds that such admission “would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.” Candidate Trump is telling us that President Obama should use this power, and that a President Trump would. Despite vigorous assertions by talking heads that suspending the admission of Muslim immigrants would be unconstitutional, prior Supreme Court opinions clearly suggest that courts would reject constitutional challenges to any president’s proposed suspension of Muslim admission into the United States in accordance with U.S. law. In the leading case of Fiallo v. Bell, the Supreme Court in 1977 noted, “Our cases ‘have long recognized the power to expel or exclude aliens as a fundamental sovereign attribute exercised by the government’s political departments largely immune from judicial control.’” In upholding the authority of the government …
Donald J. Trump’s reprehensible call to bar Muslim immigrants from entering the United States tracks an exam question I’ve been giving my immigration law students since Sept. 11. Would such a proposal be constitutional? The answer is not what you might think — but it also raises the issue of what, exactly, we mean when we say something is “constitutional” in the first place. In the ordinary, non-immigration world of constitutional law, the Trump scheme would be blatantly unconstitutional, a clear violation of both equal protection and religious freedom (he had originally called for barring American Muslims living abroad from re-entering the country as well; he has since dropped that clearly unconstitutional notion). But under a line of rulings from the Supreme Court dating back more than a century, that’s irrelevant. As the court observed in its 1977 decision in Fiallo v. Bell, “In the exercise of its broad power over immigration and naturalization, Congress regularly makes rules that would be unacceptable if applied to citizens.” The court has given the political branches the judicial …
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