Dean Johnson Writes on Trump Immigration Proposal for National Law Journal
Dean Kevin R. Johnson published an essay in the National Law Journal regarding Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's call for a blanket prohibition against Muslim noncitizens entering the United States. The essay, "Trump's Idea on Muslims Fails, Despite Precedent," is also posted to the King Hall Faculty Blog.
In the past, the U.S. Supreme Court has supported the "plenary power" doctrine, which immunizes from constitutional review substantive immigration decisions of Congress and the executive branch, a position which supported race- and religion-based immigration prohibitions such as the Chinese Exclusion Act, Dean Johnson notes. Today's Supreme Court would be unlikely to follow suit, he explains.
"In the end, while Trump's bombastic attacks on immigrants might make political hay, one can hope that the American legal system has evolved to a point where anti-immigrant horror stories such as the Chinese Exclusion Act are parts of our history, not present," Dean Johnson writes.
Kevin R. Johnson is Dean and Mabie-Apallas Professor of Public Interest Law and Chicana/o studies at UC Davis School of Law. He is an internationally recognized scholar in the fields of immigration law and policy, refugee law, and civil rights.